Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Scotty Burke It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Yazmin Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Walter Sloane Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

cultfilmfreaksdotcom During the first act, as we learn the intricate ins-and-outs of a 1970's Las Vegas CASINO... taking us so close inside the operation we feel part of the roulette tables and the dice rolling across them... it's intentionally created in the same fashion director Martin Scorsese showed us with an entire mob's operation in GOODFELLAS...But then something happens, or stops happening, or both: The main character, Sam "Ace" Rothstein, played by Robert De Niro, is a man of mind, not action. He's to gambling what Scorsese is to directing... a natural... and the casino itself becomes an absorbing character: we feel pulse of the machines, and the men behind the scenes, keeping the moneymaking beast alive while protecting it from cheaters, con artists, and crooked politicians.Enter Joe Pesci as Nicky, Rothstein's childhood friend: the muscle who is familiar and cocky, dangerous and ultimately undependable. And there's the flavor of the month, Sharon Stone, as Sam's trophy girlfriend turned wife, Ginger, who becomes the apple of his eye - and soon, for a man who seemed so infallible, nothing matters but trusting a woman who repeatedly warned him not to.The movie hits a wall with this escalating-downhill relationship between Sam and Ginger, but it was faltering beforehand - De Niro, Pesci, and some of the other shady characters, although colorful and formidable, aren't interesting enough to really care about - unlike GOODFELLAS, RAGING BULL or TAXI DRIVER, they all seem more written than real.The duel-narration here... while beautiful in GOODFELLAS between Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco... works here and it doesn't: De Niro's by-the-numbers account is fine in the beginning, giving us a firsthand account of how things run, but it becomes a rambling safety net for the lack of a streamlined plot: especially when his business luck turns sour.Meanwhile Joe Pesci's counterpoint is completely unnecessary, sounding like a mafia goon's version of Bugs Bunny, filling us with details better left for the audience to figure on their own (and given his character's fate... is the narration recorded in Satan's private broadcasting station?)...Then the last half runs itself completely ragged: juggling the dull doomed love story straight out of a nighttime soap, and Ace and Nicky's edgy friendship that meanders to a predictably violent conclusion (and they never seemed that tight to begin with for an unraveling to really matter).If Scorsese and scriptwriter Nicholas Pillegi stuck closer to the Casino, perhaps CASINO, and its characters, might have had more purpose. What we're left with is too much style without substance.(And has there ever been a character more deserving a bloody death than James Wood's pimp/hustler who not only repeatedly steals Stone from DeNiro, but kidnaps, and continually threatens, his daughter? While we witness the immense, overboard bloodshed of everyone else, James comes out with a few bruises. What the hell were they thinking?!)

cinephile-27690 This is the movie that introduced me to Martin Scorsese and I was enthralled into it for 3 hours. I have seen a handful of this movies since then. That said, I have to give it a 8 and not a 10 because it has too much profanity. According to this site's parents guide, there are 422 F word uses. At the time, that was the record holder, than Nil By Mouth broke it 2 years later. There does not need to be that many F words and the record has no need whatsoever to be broken! If profanity of this length bothers you, AMC plays it without the language, but it has an hour of commercials added. Also, Roger Ebert gave it 4/4 stars and called it the 5th best movie of 1995. In short, it is a good movie , but not for those offended to language.

bettycjung 3/13/18. They definitely don't make movies like this anymore. This movie is a testament to how great a director Scorsese is, to keep you enraptured for 3 hours watching how 3 people self-destruct with Las Vegas as the backdrop. Based on the nonfiction book by Pileggi, who also wrote the screenplay (as well as the one for Goodfellas), it is really the history of the old Las Vegas Strip, when mobsters and the Mafia ran the everything. Definitely worth catching!

SlyGuy21 Many films have come before it, many will come after it, but none will be able to top it. I haven't seen all of Martin Scorsese's movies, but I will bet real money that none of them are as good as this. He's directed some great movies, "Goodfellas", "Taxi Driver", and "Silence" are just some off the top of my head, but those all dwarf in comparison to this. Scorsese took a lot of aspects from "Goodfellas", and improved on them in ways that leave me in awe. I like to call this "Goodfellas without the flaws". Is that a controversial statement, probably, do I care, no. The only real flaw that "Goodfellas" had, as I've said before, was the ending. It always felt to me like they just kind of ran out of budget and skipped to the ending. "Casino" fixes that, this movie's 3 hours long, and it's paced out perfectly. Every scene, no matter how small, contributes to the plot, even characters that only show up in a handful of scenes contribute to the plot. Scorsese has the ability to make some of the most detestable people interesting. Even though the characters are all criminals, you still enjoy them being on screen. Ace is the closest thing to a protagonist here, but you sympathize with him when people begin to turn on him in order to protect their own self interest.It's the perfect example of how greed and corruption and self interest can be the most destructive thing imaginable. It starts off simple enough, some mob guys want to make some money in Vegas, but greed slowly starts to take over people like a disease. Friends turn on each other, lie to each other, forget promises, and you just can't turn away. There's enough drama, action, and comedy to keep you invested in what's going on. And when it's all said and done, when the empire falls, when the layout of Vegas is changed forever, Ace is the only one really left with anything. Everybody who turned on him, who lied to him, who manipulated him either dies, or is left with nothing. Nicky and his brother get bludgeoned to death, Ginger goes through all her money and ODs alone with no one there for her, and Sam is still kept by the mob because he's a good earner. He loses so much by the end, but he keeps his life, he starts over, from the bottom, to the top, back to the bottom. While Sam tries to control this sinking ship around him, he always stays relatable, you want him to succeed, if not that than live at least. "Casino" is the ultimate tale of greed, the ultimate tale of deception, of how self preservation can be the worst thing a human being can have. And it does all of this while simultaneously being funny, sad, and informative as to how the mob works. When I think of great gangster movies, I don't think of "The Godfather", I don't think of "Goodfellas", I think of this. Everything I could ever want out of a movie is here, it's the best pure movie I can think of, and it sits at the very top of my Top 10, never to be challenged, never to be replaced, never to be questioned. It is absolute. And that's that.