Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci and the Martin Scorsese movie ‘Casino’

The Nicholas Pileggi book Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas reunited director Martin Scorsese with actor Robert De Niro for an unprecedented eighth time. Casino (1995), while enjoyed by many, is generally well regarded in the Scorsese movie canon, though much enjoyed as a solid movie with solid use of music and storytelling, is not ranked among the best movies directed by the celebrated director.

(From left, Robert De Niro as Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein, Sharon Stone as Ginger McKenna and James Woods as Lester Diamond in the Martin Scorsese movie Casino).

Casino functions as a love triangle mixed in with a robust story of greed, money, power and murder between two childhood friends with the Tangiers Casino and Hotel of the 1970s in Las Vegas, Nevada at the center. Robert De Niro portrays Jewish American Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein, a gambler and handicapping expert asked by organized criminals from Chicago, Illinois to oversee day-to-day operations at the Tangiers, which ostensibly is overseen by Phillip Green as portrayed by Kevin Pollak.

(From left, Frank Vincent as Frank Marino and Joe Pesci as Nicky Santoro in the Martin Scorsese movie Casino).

Nicky Santoro, as portrayed by Joe Pesci, is the childhood friend to Rothstein. Santoro also is a made man, meaning fully initiated with trust into the Mafia as a trusted member of the family. Santoro is an enforcer that keeps people in line with organized crime through violence, with Frank Marino as portrayed by Frank Vincent as a trusted helper. The story of Rothstein and Santoro is nearly as important as the story of Rothstein, Ginger McKenna and, ultimately, Lester Diamond.

(From left, Robert De Niro as Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein and Don Rickles as Billy Sherbert in the Martin Scorsese movie Casino).

Lester Diamond, as played by James Woods, is the preexisting con-artist turned pimp with significant emotional influence over Ginger McKenna, who becomes Sam Rothstein’s wife. Sharon Stone portrays McKenna, a hustler, dancer and former prostitute who Rothstein marries in his early 40s despite this past. Don Rickles portrays Billy Sherbert, Rothstein’s enforcer. It is Sherbert and Santoro that in part support the triangle between Diamond, McKenna and Rothstein, though intrigue aided by an intriguing soundtrack aid the story that at multiple points that become the central story for the future of the Tangiers Casino and Hotel.

(From left, Robert De Niro as Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein and L.Q. Jones as Pat Webb in the Martin Scorsese movie Casino).

That larger story comes to include Pat Webb, Clark County gaming commission chairman. L.Q. Jones portrays Webb, and the precise way this plays out is worth the time you should invest in the movie Casino, especially if you are a fan of organized crime movies. The underlying story for how these two come to meet in the scene pictured above remains a solid piece of humor in the face of competition over the fate of a gambling empire and matters of the heart.

(From left, Casino director Martin Scorsese with actor Robert De Niro on set of the Martin Scorsese movie Casino).

Family, loyalty and the torment that comes from keeping those you love close feels like the core stories for how to have a run in organized crime. The movie Casino spins nearly three hours of intrigue that largely works. The movie Goodfellas (1990), which preceded Casino by a mere five years, gets more love for playing in a similar sandbox while more authoritatively depicting a lifestyle that resonated better for critics and the general public alike. I rate Casino at 4.25-stars on a scale of one-to-five.

Matt – Saturday, January 9, 2021

Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci and the Martin Scorsese movie ‘Goodfellas’

Mob movies rank highly with Matt Lynn Digital friends Airport Friend and Cobra. In their respective rankings of top movies, the latter lists three mobster movies among the top nine movies he has ever seen. The former, Airport Friend, includes Goodfellas (1990) as the eighth movie overall on his listing of top films. We turn our attention to the film based on the Nicholas Pileggi book Wiseguy.

(From left, Ray Liotta as Henry Hill and Lorraine Bracco as Karen Hill in the movie Goodfellas).

Wise guy Henry Hill, portrayed in Goodfellas as an adult by Ray Liotta, is a central character in a tight knit group of mobsters based in New York City. Karen Hill, as portrayed by Lorraine Bracco, becomes what begins as an understanding wife. The course of the life the Hills leads to something exceedingly different from what Henry or Karen’s parents experienced, which leads to friction in the marriage as the years explored in Goodfellas are explored.

(From left, Ray Liotta as Henry Hill and Paul Sorvino as Paul Cicero in the movie Goodfellas).

Paul Cicero as portrayed by Paul Sorvino becomes an important mob leader for the career that Henry Hill is staking with his little piece of the mob action. From the point where Cicero agrees to bring the young Henry Hill, as portrayed by Christopher Serrone, into the racket to the point where Hill starts a hustle with young Tommy DeVito, as portrayed by Joseph D’Onofrio, the beginning of mob careers for Tommy and Henry are just getting established as teenagers.

(From left, Ray Liotta as Henry Hill, Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito, Catherine Scorsese as Tommy DeVito’s Mother and Robert De Niro as James Conway in the movie Goodfellas).

Tommy DeVito is portrayed as an adult by Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. Catherine Scorsese plays his mother, Mrs. DeVito. Tommy DeVito never gets married in the film. Henry Hill and DeVito both get into the types of work you’d expect with insight into the personalities and varying degrees of commitment to sticking with the racket.

(From left, Michael Imperioli as Spider and Dennis Farina in the movie Goodfellas).

Of significant influence and authority over the full scheme of Hill, DeVito and Cicero is the role of James Conway. Robert De Niro portrays James Conway. Roles portrayed by Michael Imperioli (as Spider) and by Dennis Farina in part demonstrated how running afoul of Tommy DeVito become things to clean-up either individually or collectively for the crew run by Conway. The outcomes of these two are warnings about loyalty to Hill and DeVito especially. It is in the narrative cycle and personal outcomes for many in this tale that the appeal of mobster movies come for friends like Airport Friend and Cobra, should I understand their feelings properly.

(From left, actor Robert De Niro with film director Martin Scorsese on set of Goodfellas).

Martin Scorsese directed Goodfellas, along with taking screenplay writing credits alongside Nicholas Pileggi. The movie itself offers emotionally compelling cinema with a story of the conflicting needs and turns of an admittedly self-absorbed, sociopathic set of morally-bankrupt characters. The themes of loyalty, respect, getting made or rebuffed, and the finality of the tale is clear, strong, and compellingly told. The story was told with some sense of justice meted out. I’ll leave it to those familiar with the movie, and the state of the larger United States civil and political culture today, to decide if this remains the best Scorsese gangster movie made. I rate Goodfellas at 4.50-stars on a scale of one-to-five.

Matt – Saturday, August 22, 2020

Top 20 Movie “Do the Right Thing”

Top 20 Movie Do The Right Thing (1989) ranks 7th in Matt Lynn Digital’s Top 20 Movies in ranked order listing. This critical look at race relations, political issues, urban crime and violence brought film producer, director, writer, and actor Spike Lee an Academy Award nomination for the best writing category for screenplay written directly for the screen.

The film stands as a testament to acknowledging racial tension in a way that speaks with sympathy to the perspectives of many sides. As the Roger Ebert review of Do The Right Thing says

“[Spike Lee] didn’t draw lines or take sides but simply looked with sadness at one racial flashpoint that stood for many others.”

(Spike Lee as Mookie in Do The Right Thing)

Do the Right Thing tells the story of a day in the life of one Brooklyn street. We meet the neighbors and the neighborhood, seeing in small steps how a heated, hot day in the life of a neighborhood looks and feels like. We see the humanity and the frustration as a neighborhood living in bigotry boils over into violence, and the setting of a revenge fire in the face of an unprovoked murder at the hands of the police.

 (Love and Hate for Radio Raheem as played by Bill Nunn in Do the Right Thing)

It is the loud music of Radio Raheem’s boom box, in concert with the demands of Buggin Out (played by Giancarlo Esposito) to see African American faces on the wall of Sal’s Pizzeria that ostensibly leads to the film’s resolution. Sal (played by Danny Aiello) takes a bite of hate out of the booming sound of Radio Raheem’s boom box, symbolically answering one form of disrespect (the loudness) with another (property destruction). The pizzeria is destroyed while Raheem loses his life; the inequality of this exchange given that insurance can rebuild a pizzeria is the testimony that speaks loudest.

As Rosie Perez, who played Tina in the film, is quoted as saying in the 20th anniversary DVD for Do the Right Thing:

“I saw the magic of the filmmaking…There’s a science to it. And it’s science, plus love, plus art, plus talent. And that occurred, and that’s why I think this movie is an American classic. I really do. I really do. Hands down. Hands down. Hands down.”

Do the Right Thing is our eighth (8th) ranked film. Twenty-eight years after the initial release, the message of this film still stands up today.

Matt – Saturday, December 9, 2017