Casino (film)

Casino is a 1995 crime drama film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Nicholas Pileggi, who also co-wrote the screenplay for the film with Scorsese.

Robert De Niro stars as Sam "Ace" Rothstein, a Jewish-American top gambling handicapperwho is called by the Mob to oversee the day-to-day operations at the fictional Tangiers casino inLas Vegas. The story is based on Frank Rosenthal, who ran the Stardust, Fremont and theHacienda casinos in Las Vegas for the Chicago Outfit from the 1970s until the early 1980s.

Joe Pesci plays Nicky Santoro, based on real-life mob enforcer Anthony Spilotro. Nicky is sent to Vegas to make sure that money from the Tangiers is skimmed off the top and that the mobsters in Vegas are kept in line. Sharon Stone plays Ginger, Ace's self-obsessed and devious wife, a role that earned her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

When released, Casino had the most uses of the word "fuck" (422) in a feature length film.

Plot

In 1983, Sam "Ace" Rothstein (De Niro) exits a restaurant and gets into his car, which explodes when he turns it on. Sam then narrates the story, and flashes back to the beginning.

Going back ten years, Sam, then a sports handicapper for the mob, is entrusted by Chicago Outfit bosses to run the Tangiers Casino, which is under their control through corrupt representatives of the Teamsters. Sam is at first reluctant to manage the Tangiers due to his criminal record, but is able to do so through lax gaming laws which simply require employees to make an application for a casino license; and can work at the casino while awaiting a license hearing, which often take years due to a large backlog. Sam's expertise enables him to quickly double the casino's profits, which are skimmed by the mafia before the records are reported to income tax agencies. Impressed with Sam's work, the bosses send Sam's friend, enforcer Nicholas "Nicky" Santoro (Pesci), to protect Sam and the whole business. Nicky, however, begins to become more of a liability than an asset, as his brash attitude quickly gets him banned from every casino, and his name is placed in the black book. Nicky then gathers his own crew and begins his own businesses, such as a restaurant and a jewelry store, but also engages in burglary, which is not sanctioned by the bosses.

Sam, meanwhile, meets and falls in love with a hustler, Ginger McKenna (Stone). Despite Ginger's reluctance, they soon conceive a daughter, Amy, and marry. But their relationship slowly begins to fall apart when Ginger is caught by Sam and Nicky aiding her former boyfriend, a con man named Lester Diamond (James Woods). Sam also makes an enemy in Clark County Commissioner Pat Webb (L. Q. Jones) by firing his brother-in-law Donald Ward (Joe Bob Briggs) from the casino for his incompetence and resisting pressure from Webb to reinstate him. Webb retaliates by pulling Sam's casino license application from the backlog, forcing Sam to have a license hearing, but secretly arranges for the gaming board and State Senator Harrison Roberts of the State of Nevada (Dick Smothers) to reject the license. Sam responds by appearing on television and openly accuses the city government of corruption. The bosses, unappreciative of Sam's publicity, ask him to return home, but he stubbornly blames Nicky's reckless lawbreaking for his mess. Nicky chastises Sam to never "go over his head" in a heated argument in the desert.

The bosses soon notice that the suitcases of money from the skim have decreasing amounts of money, meaning that the money counters have begun skimming some for themselves. They put Artie Piscano in charge of overseeing the skims, but he complains about the expensive costs. Despite the bosses warning Piscano not to keep financial records, he secretly starts writing down how much he spends in a ledger. Piscano's rants about the extra work and the costs are overheard by the FBI, who bugged his grocery store. Sam finally reaches the end of his patience with Ginger after she and Lester are in Los Angeles with plans to run away to Europe with his daughter Amy. Sam talks Ginger into bringing Amy back, but her addictions anger Sam so much that he kicks her out of the house. She returns, on the condition that she carry a beeper on her for Sam to contact her whenever he must. Ginger turns to Nicky for help in getting her share of her and Sam's money from the bank, and they begin a sexual affair, which according to mob rules, could get the three of them killed (as well as Nicky's crew for covering it up). Sam reaches his limit with Ginger when she ties Amy to her bedposts to have a night with Nicky. Sam confronts Ginger in the restaurant and disowns her. She turns to Nicky, but he has lost patience with her as well. The next morning, Ginger goes to Sam's house, creates a domestic disturbance, and takes the key to their bank deposit box. She takes some of the savings, but is then arrested by FBI agents.

With Ginger's arrest and the FBI's discovery of Piscano's records, which are then matched with the skimming operation, the casino empire crumbles and the bosses are arrested. During a meeting, they decide to eliminate anyone involved in order to keep them from testifying. The slain include Andy Stone, the head of the Teamsters Pension Fund; John Nance, the money courier; and three casino executives. Ginger, who runs away from Sam to Los Angeles, sinks deeper into drug and alcohol addiction and dies penniless of a drug overdose.

Nicky and his brother, Dominick, arrange a clandestine meeting in a cornfield, but are suddenly turned on and severely beaten with baseball bats by their own crew. Nicky is held down while Dominick is beaten unconscious, then he is next. The brothers are stripped and buried in a freshly-dug grave while still breathing. Sam narrates that the bosses ordered the hit on account of being fed up with Nicky's hotheadedness and disregard for order, and apparently granted Nicky's crew clemency in exchange for it.

Returning to the film's opening scene, Sam survives the car bomb, but knows that the bosses were not responsible for it. With the mob now out of power, the old casinos are purchased by big corporations and demolished to make way for much gaudier gambling attractions financed by junk bonds. Sam laments that this new "family friendly" Las Vegas lacks the same kind of catering to the players than the older and to his perception classier Vegas he saw when he ran the Tangiers. In the final scene, an older Sam is shown living once again as a sports handicapper for the mob, or in his words, "right back where [I] started".

[edit]Cast

Actor	Role	Based on
Robert De Niro	Sam "Ace" Rothstein	Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal
Joe Pesci	Nicholas "Nicky" Santoro	Tony "The Ant" Spilotro
Sharon Stone	Ginger McKenna Rothstein	Geraldine McGee Rosenthal
Frank Vincent	Frankie Marino	Frank Cullotta
Don Rickles	Billy Sherbert	Murray Ehrenberg
Pasquale Cajano	Remo Gaggi	Joseph Aiuppa
James Woods	Lester Diamond	Leonard "Lenny" Marmor
John Bloom	Donald "Don" Ward	Slot Machine Manager
L. Q. Jones	Pat Webb	A Clark County Commissioner
Kevin Pollak	Philip Green	Allen Glick
Alan King	Andy Stone	Allen Dorfman
Bill Allison	John Nance	George Vandermark
Philip Suriano	Dominick Santoro	Michael Spilotro
Vinny Vella	Artie Piscano	Carl "Tuffy" DeLuna
Nobu Matsuhisa	K. K. Ichikawa	Akio Kashiwagi
Richard Riehle	Charlie "Clean Face" Clark	Morris Shenker
Dick Smothers	Nevada State Senator Harrison Roberts	US Senator Harry Reid[1] (D-NV)
Oscar Goodman	Himself	Himself
Frankie Avalon	Himself	Himself

[edit]Production

[edit]Development

The research for Casino began when screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi read a report from the Las Vegas Sun in 1980 about a domestic argument between Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, a casino figure and his wife, Geri McGee, a former topless dancer.^[2] This gave him an idea to focus on a new book about the true story of mob infringement in Las Vegas during the 1970s, when filming of Goodfellas (the screenplay which he co-wrote with Scorsese) was coming to an end.^[3] Pileggi decided to contact Scorsese about taking the helm of the project which would become known as Casino.^[2] Scorsese expressed interest in the project calling this an "idea of success, no limits".^[4] Although Pileggi was keen to release the book and then concentrate on a film adaptation, Scorsese encouraged him to "reverse the order".^[5]

Scorsese and Pileggi collaborated on the script lasting for a total of five months, towards the end of 1994.^[3] Real-life characters such as Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, Geri, Anthony Spilotro and his brother were reshaped. Some characters were combined as well as parts of the story being set in Las Vegas instead of Chicago. A problem emerged when they were forced to refer Chicago as "back home" and use the words "adapted from a true story" instead of "based on a true story".^[4] They also decided to simplify the script, so that the character of Sam "Ace" Rothstein only worked at the Tangiers Casino to show a glimpse of the trials involved in operating a mafia run casino hotel without overwhelming the audience.^[4] According to Scorsese, the initial opening sequence was to feature the main character, Sam Rothstein, fighting with his estranged wife, Ginger, on the lawn on their house. Since the scene was too detailed, they changed the sequence to show the explosion of Sam's car and see him fly into the air before hovering over the flames in slow motion—like a soul about to go straight down inhell.^[4]

[edit]Principal photography

Filming took place at night in the Riviera casino in Las Vegas to replicate the fictional Tangiers. According to the producer Barbara De Fina, there was no point in building a set if the cost was the same to use a real-life one.^[4] The opening scene, with Sam's car exploding, was shot three times with the third used for the film.^[4] According to Scorsese, "we (with Nicholas Pileggi) wanted to show the end of the old way".^[4]

[edit]Reception

While the film was heavily criticized for its excessive violence, it garnered a mostly positive critical response. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an 81% "fresh" rating, based on 57 reviews.^[6] On Metacritic, the rating is 73 (generally favorable reviews) out of 100 based on 17 reviews.^[7]

Sharon Stone was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role as well as a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture — Drama. Martin Scorsese was also nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Director - Motion Picture.

[edit]Soundtrack

Casino: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Soundtrack by various artists
Released	November 20, 1995
Genre	Soundtrack
Label	MCA

[edit]Track listing

[edit]Disc one

1. "Contempt – Theme De Camille" by Georges Delerue
2. "Angelina/Zooma, Zooma Medley" by Louis Prima
3. "Hoochie Coochie Man" by Muddy Waters
4. "I'll Take You There" by The Staple Singers
5. "Nights in White Satin" by The Moody Blues
6. "How High The Moon" by Les Paul & Mary Ford
7. "Hurt" by Timi Yuro
8. "Ain't Got No Home" by Clarence 'Frogman' Henry
9. "Without You" by Nilsson
10. "Love Is the Drug" by Roxy Music
11. "I'm Sorry" by Brenda Lee
12. "Go Your Own Way" by Fleetwood Mac
13. "The Thrill Is Gone" by B.B. King
14. "Love Is Strange" by Mickey & Sylvia
15. "The 'In' Crowd" by Ramsey Lewis
16. "Stardust" by Hoagy Carmichael

[edit]Disc two

1. "Walk on the Wild Side" by Jimmy Smith
2. "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)" by Otis Redding
3. "I Ain't Superstitious" by Jeff Beck Group
4. "The Glory of Love" by The Velvetones
5. "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by The Rolling Stones
6. "What a Diff'rence a Day Made" by Dinah Washington
7. "Working in the Coal Mine" by Lee Dorsey
8. "House of the Rising Sun" by The Animals
9. "Those Were the Days" by Cream
10. "Who Can I Turn To (When Nobody Needs Me)" by Tony Bennett
11. "Slippin' and Slidin'" by Little Richard
12. "You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You" by Dean Martin
13. "Compared to What" (Live) by Les McCann & Eddie Harris
14. "Basin Street Blues/When It's Sleepy Time Down South" by Louis Prima
15. "St. Matthew Passion (Wir setzen uns mit Tränen nieder)" by Johann Sebastian Bach (Chicago Symphony Orchestra)

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