Most crucially we are told that Ace always wins. He knows everything about gambling we are told about how he would find out the little details no one else cared about, such as wind velocity and how the flooring of a game will effect the bounce of the ball. We are introduced in this hour to Ace’s character, a high stakes gambler. It’s surprising that the film is able to carry itself for so long without much plot progression, and I attribute this to both to the image in our head of the car bomb, and the fact that what we are being told is artfully written and effortlessly interesting. So we have a third of the movie dedicated to filling in those blanks. The first hour I mentioned is told almost entirely through visual storytelling and voice over narration, the movie lives and dies on two things: The characters and the intricacies of the Mob. The narration is also handled by Joe Pesci’s character Nicky Santoro (who we’ll speak more about later) who does a fine fine job. Sam Rosthstein narrates to us his past experiences leading up to the grave moment, starting in the 1980s when the mob ran Las Vegas.

the opening also explains why so much of the story is told through voice over narration, especially in the first hour. The unrequited shock of this moment is what drives the narrative of “Casino”, whenever anything in the future happens or you get the sense that there is little direction to the plot, you remember where it will end up, and it contextualises the situations and keeps it all very engaging. Robert De Niro’s character Sam “Ace” Rosthstein walks out of a Casino in a bright pink suit and sits in his rigged car, which instantly erupts in hell-fire. The vampire council requires money to get blood, but the Mafia require blood to get money.įrom the outset, “Casino” makes its presence known. An organisation that is everywhere but never seen, and have their blood soaked tendrils in everything. It is completely inappropriate that I am reminded of the vampire council in “Blade”, but regardless, I am. He knows that the inner workings of the Italian crime family is fascinating to those who avidly pursue the knowledge of what goes on under the surface and even more so to those who blissfully ignore its ethereal presence. The Mafia is the most interesting crime organisation out there, and Martin Scorsese understands this as well as the Mafia itself all too well.

Casino 1995 movie cast