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. The two previously collaborated on the 1990 hit film Goodfellas.

The film marks the eighth and (to date) final collaboration between director Scorsese and Robert De Niro, following Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), New York, New York (1977), Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1983), Goodfellas (1990), and Cape Fear (1991).

De Niro stars as Sam "Ace" Rothstein, a Jewish-American top gambling handicapper who is called by the Mob to oversee the day-to-day operations at the fictional Tangiers casino in Las Vegas. The story is based on Frank Rosenthal, who ran the Stardust, Fremont and the Hacienda 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 wife, a role that earned her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

The film ranks fifth in the list of films that most frequently use the word "fuck".

Plot
Sam "Ace" Rothstein, a sports handicapper and mob associate, is sent to Las Vegas to run the Teamsters-funded Tangiers Casino on behalf of several midwest mob families. Taking advantage of lax gaming laws allowing him to work at the casino while his gaming license is still pending, Sam becomes the Tangiers' de facto boss and doubles 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 and caporegime Nicholas "Nicky" Santoro and his crew to protect Sam and the whole business. Nicky, however, begins to become more of a liability than an asset; his violent temper quickly gets him banned by the gaming board from every casino, and his name is placed in the black book. Nicky then gathers his own crew and begins running unsanctioned shakedowns and burglaries.

Sam, meanwhile, meets and falls in love with a hustler, Ginger McKenna. Despite Ginger's reluctance, they soon conceive a daughter, Amy, and marry. Their relationship begins to deteriorate when Sam and Nicky catch Ginger giving money to her former boyfriend, a con man named Lester Diamond. Sam also makes an enemy in Clark County Commissioner Pat Webb by firing Webb's brother-in-law Donald Ward (Briggs) for incompetence, and refusing to reinstate him. Webb retaliates by pulling Sam's casino license application from the backlog, forcing Sam to have a license hearing, while secretly arranging for the gaming board and State Senator Harrison Roberts 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 own problems. In a heated argument in the desert, Nicky chastises Sam to never "go over his head" again.

The bosses appoint Kansas City underboss Artie Piscano to oversee the skim and reduce the amount local mobsters are keeping for themselves, but he keeps incriminating ledgers and is caught on an FBI bug discussing the skim. Sam loses 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 Ginger's alcoholism and cocaine addiction anger him so much that he kicks her out of the house. She returns, on Sam's 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 an affair. Sam reaches his limit with Ginger when she ties Amy to her bed to have a night with Nicky. Sam confronts Ginger in the restaurant and disowns her. She turns to Nicky, but he has washed his hands of her as well. The next morning, Ginger goes to Sam's house, creates a disturbance, and uses the distraction to take 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, including the head of the teamsters, the money courier, and several casino executives. Ginger dies nearly penniless in Los Angeles of a drug overdose, and Sam is almost killed in a botched car bombing, which he suspects Nicky planted. Before Sam can confront him, however, Nicky and his brother Dominick are murdered by Nicky's former associate, Frankie Marino (Vincent). Sam narrates that the bosses had finally had enough of Nicky, and had ordered Frankie to get rid of him.

With the mob now out of power, the old casinos are purchased by big corporations and demolished to make way for 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 as 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 in San Diego, once again as a sports handicapper for the mob, or in his words, "...right back where I started".

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. 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. Pileggi decided to contact Scorsese about taking the helm of the project, which would become known as Casino. Scorsese expressed interest in the project, calling this an "idea of success, no limits". Although Pileggi was keen to release the book and then concentrate on a film adaptation, Scorsese encouraged him to "reverse the order".

Scorsese and Pileggi collaborated on the script for five months, towards the end of 1994. Real-life characters such as Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, Geri, Anthony Spilotro and his brother were reshaped. Some characters were combined, and parts of the story were 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". They also decided to simplify the script, so that the character of Sam "Ace" Rothstein only worked at the Tangiers Casino, in order to show a glimpse of the trials involved in operating a Mafia-run casino hotel without overwhelming the audience. According to Scorsese, the initial opening sequence was to feature the main character, Sam Rothstein, fighting with his estranged wife, Ginger, on the lawn of their house. Since the scene was too detailed, they changed the sequence to show the explosion of Sam's car and his flying into the air before hovering over the flames in slow motion&mdash;like a soul about to go straight down to hell.

Principal photography
Filming took place at night in the Riviera casino in Las Vegas to replicate the fictional Tangiers with the nearby defunct Landmark Hotel for the entrance. 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. The opening scene, with Sam's car exploding, was shot three times with the third used for the film.

Reception
When first submitted to the MPAA, the film received an NC-17 rating due to its depictions of violence. Several edits were made in order to reduce the rating to R.

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. On Metacritic, the rating is 73 (generally favorable reviews) out of 100 based on 17 reviews.

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.

American Film Institute Lists
 * AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies - Nominated
 * AFI's 10 Top 10 - Nominated Gangster Film

Soundtrack

 * Disc 1
 * 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


 * Disc 2
 * 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 Devo
 * 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, conducted by Sir Georg Solti)