Martin Scorsese has made a career out of examining American life with brutal honesty. Casino is no exception. It doesn’t pretend to be a piece of entertainment; it is an epic history lesson about how the mafia gave way to gambling corporations that control Sin City.
Beneath all the flashing lights and free cocktails, casinos are built on a bedrock of mathematics engineered to slowly bleed gamblers of their money. It’s why you won’t see any clocks on the floor and why some casinos ban dealers from wearing watches. Even if you’re winning, you should know that your bankroll will eventually run out and you should stop playing.
But the line between cleverness and exploitation is often crossed long before gamblers realize it. The hypnotic carpet swirls, the missing clocks, the ring of slot machines—all of these things are part of a silent conversation between architecture and your brain designed to make you stay just one more spin.
Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci are both outstanding, but it’s Sharon Stone who steals the show as Ginger, an addicted-to-anything femme fatale opportunist most men would love to tame. Her performance is both a continuation of and an inversion of her star-making turn as Basic Instinct’s Catherine Tramell. But unlike Basic Instinct and Silver, Casino reveals her as a character with a full arc and layers of complexity. If you’re a fan of Scorsese or gangster movies in general, this is a must-see.