Casino – A Movie Review
A casino is a place where champagne glasses clink and patrons mingle, but it’s also a place where gambling takes center stage. Many people come to casinos to try their luck and enjoy the ambiance, which often includes restaurants, free drinks, and stage shows. Some people even bring their kids to play games. A casino can have as few as a handful of table games or slot machines and as many as thousands, all of which are designed to keep the players entertained for hours on end.
While some gamblers strut their stuff at the tables and expect to win big, most people are just looking for a good time. This is why casinos are filled with music, coins clinking and a general upbeat atmosphere. Then there’s the booze – which is poured nonstop, and usually for free – that lowers inhibitions and clouds judgment. This can lead to some pretty bad decisions, especially if you’re drunk.
Gambling isn’t for everyone, and there are some who have a real problem with it. That’s why casinos put a lot of time and money into security measures to prevent cheating, stealing and scamming. They’re hoping to keep their reputation intact so they can continue to draw people in and make a profit. Some casinos even have cameras in the ceiling that can be adjusted to focus on certain areas, and they also have a high-tech eye-in-the-sky system where security workers can watch everything from the comfort of their office.
Martin Scorsese’s depiction of Sin City in Casino is a bit more honest than Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls, which only showed the glamorous side of Las Vegas. The movie digs deeper, showing the darker side of organized crime and the opulence that still defines much of the city. The violence in the movie, which includes a torture-by-vice scene and a baseball bat beating that had to be trimmed to avoid an NC-17 rating, is disturbing but it’s accurate.
The film is almost three hours long, but it never lags and is riveting from start to finish. Scorsese’s editing and taut narration keep the audience on the edge of their seats. It’s also a great way to learn about the history of Las Vegas and how it got where it is today. The movie explains how mob rule gave way to massive casino corporations.
A casino is a place where champagne glasses clink and patrons mingle, but it’s also a place where gambling takes center stage. Many people come to casinos to try their luck and enjoy the ambiance, which often includes restaurants, free drinks, and stage shows. Some people even bring their kids to play games. A casino…