I am talking purely as reates to the gangster movie theme.
Casino is a gangster film directed by Martin Scosese. It is based on the book of the same name. Robert De Niro stars as Sam Rothstein, a gambling handicapper who is called by the Mob to oversee the operations at the Tangiers Casino in Vegas. The story is based on Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, who ran the Stardust, Fremont and the Hacienda casinos in Las Vegas for The Mob from the 1970s until the early 1980s.
Joe Pesci plays Nicky Santoro, based on Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro, an intimidating enforcer and psychopath. Santoro is sent by the Chicago Outfit to Vegas to make sure that money from the Tangiers is skimmed off the top and that the casinos and mobsters in Vegas are kept in line. Sharon Stone plays Rothstein's wife, the self-obsessed, spoiled, devious and sly Ginger, a role that earned her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
Nicholas Pileggi is an Italian-American author and screenwriter, best known for writing the book Wiseguy, which he adapted into the movie Goodfellas, and for writing the book and screenplay Casino. The movie versions of both were directed by Martin Scorsese. He began his career as a journalist and had a profound interest in the mafia. This is where he developed his intuition to author books such as Wiseguy and Casino. He is also the author of the book Blye: Private Eye. He married Nora Ephron in 1987. Pileggi is an executive producer of the 2007 film American Gangster, directed by Ridley Scott.
Now as far as I am concerned the movie Casino left me a little bit let down largely as it was not as good as some of the rest of Marty's work but also because it seemed to be a little too long and it could have been edited a bit more that said Joe Pesci as ever was stellar. Goodfellas though by comparison is easily far better than Casino.
