Based on Nicholas Pileggi's nonfiction book Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas, Casino recounts the life of Sam "Ace" Rothstein (Robert De Niro). Set during the 1970s, Casino depicts how Ace, with the help of the mafia and his mob associate Nicholas "Nicky" Santoro (Joe Pesci), oversaw a lucrative gambling empire in Las Vegas. It also recounts his tumultous marriage to former prostitute Ginger (Sharon Stone), a relationship which gets further complicated once she starts having an affair with Nicky, as well as her former pimp Lester (James Woods). This starts a dominoe effect of compications that eventually leads to the end of Ace's gambling empire after the FBI catches up to him.
Casino uses the same cinematic techniques as Goodfellas to tell its story, with an almost constant voice-over narration from the main protagonist, rapid camera movements and edits to emphasize the sometimes frenzied criminal operations of the gangster lifestyle, as well as a soundtrack of popular, retro rock songs, along with an effective, recurrent use of J.S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion in the opening and closing credits, as well as throughout the film. However, where Casino diverges from Goodfellals is its much less sympathetic protagonist Ace, who is a stone-cold businessman who rarely seems to take any pleasure in the gangster lifestyle, much different from Henry Hill and his joie de vivre gangsters.
Indeed, Ace takes a very analytical and exacting approach to running his operations, best exemplified in his insistence on the chef at his casino's restaurant to have the exact same amount of blueberries in each muffin. Scorsese takes this same precise approach to the making of Casino, as he documents almost every detail of Ace's business operations in minute details. In one amazing sequence, Scorsese traces the specific trail of the flow of money within Ace's casino, from the gambling floors, through the kitchen, along a hidden location, and into a highly guarded secret vault. At times, this attention to detail can be exhausting, which may have alienated some critics, but Scorsese is doing this to put the viewer into the cold and sometimes heartless mind of his protagonist.
In this way, Casino is one of Scorsese's most demanding films, as it removes virtually any aspects of sympathy and warmth from its characters, and asks us as viewers to truly see if the gangster lifestyle is something we really want to join. Due to its general tone of joviality, it is easy to misinterpret Scorsese's earlier film Goodfellas as being a celebration of the life of a gangster. Casino, on the other hand, is an unrelentingly grim and dark film, filled with brutal scenes of unadorned violence that recall the nihilistic gangster films of Kinju Fukasaku.
Along with this pessimistic outlook on the gangster lifestyle, Scorsese also employs religiuos symbolism throughout Casino, such as portraying Ace's Las Vegas casino as a sort of Eden-like paradise in the midst of a vast desert (this is exemplified in an astounding shot of the lights of the Las Vegas Strip at night surrounded by the darkness of a seemingly endless desert). Ace is eventually tempted by the Eve-like Ginger, who seduces Ace and manipulates him to bring about his own Edenic downfall.
Also, Nicky is portrayed as a Satan-like figure, as exemplified by a scene where smoke seems to ascend from behind Nicky after he commits a horrific act of violence. Nicky's rampant amorality heightens this symbolism, and he serves in a way as the instigator for Ginger to destroy Ace's Edenic paradise when he starts an affair with her, much like Satan tempted Eve with the apple to bring about the fall of Adam and Eve from Eden.
Casino opens with Ace literally falling through the air in slow-motion against flames and the glowing lights of Las Vegas. This image is Scorsese's way of poetically portraying Ace's eventual fall from the Eden of his Las Vegas casino empire. The paradise that Ace controlled was one of his own making, but one that had to end because it was ultimately an amoral, criminal enterprise.
With its religious symbolism, anchored by Scorsese's Catholic faith, and its morality tale of a man brought down by the sin of his own pride, Casino is very much the counterpoint to Goodfellas' more lively portrait of gangsters. The two films on their own are masterpieces of cinema which need to be judged on their own merits to fully appreciate them. Goodfellas was a reverie of sorts for the exultation of youth, while Casino is more about the more mundane responsibilites of adulthood and trying to keep your career and success in check. Ultimately, Casino is a cold-blooded portrait of a man whose entire life was built upon his own self-interest; something which Scorsese shows ultimately leads to personal isolation and destruction.
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