Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
‘CASINO’ 25 AT
IT JUST MAY BE THE QUINTESSENTIAL LAS VEGAS MOVIE. ■ Sure, it lacks the record-breaking box-office receipts of “The Hangover,” the effortless cool of both incarnations of “Ocean’s Eleven” and the titular song from “Viva Las Vegas,” which has become the city’s unofficial anthem. ■ But those movies are set in Las Vegas. ■ “Casino,” which turns 25 on Sunday, is about Las Vegas — from the rise of Mafia-built casinos and their seemingly limitless opportunities for skimming profits to the corporations that imploded those landmarks and replaced them with megaresorts that, in the language of the movie, made the Strip look like Disneyland.
The entirety of the roughly three-hour movie — the barely fictionalized story of Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, his longtime friend Anthony Spilotro and the woman, Geri McGee, who came between them — was filmed in and around Las Vegas over the course of a staggering 21 weeks.
While Rosenthal secretly ran the Stardust, Hacienda, Marina and Fremont for the Chicago Outfit, the movie’s Sam “Ace” Rothstein, portrayed by Robert De Niro, was only in charge of the fictional Tangiers. Its exterior was portrayed by the Landmark, while the rest was brought to life by the Riviera during six weeks of grueling latenight shoots, starting around 11 p.m., while the casino floor was at its emptiest.
It’s now regarded as a modern classic, but “Casino” got off to a rocky start.
Upon its release on Nov. 22, 1995, the film was derided in many circles as a “Goodfellas” retread, considering both movies saw director Martin Scorsese, writer Nicholas Pileggi and actors De Niro and Joe Pesci team up to tell the story of real-life organized crime figures.
“Casino” opened in fifth place at the box office that weekend, behind newcomer “Toy Story,” holdovers “GoldenEye” and “Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls” and even the debut of the misbegotten Wesley Snipes-Woody Harrelson action spectacle known as “Money Train.”
Despite its pedigree, “Casino” was nominated for just one Oscar: best supporting actress for Sharon Stone. (She lost out to Susan Sarandon for “Dead Man Walking.”)
It wasn’t even the biggest Las Vegas-based attraction at that year’s ceremony. Nicolas Cage took home the Oscar for best actor in “Leaving Las Vegas,” one of its four nominations.
“Casino” at least was better received than 1995’s other major Las Vegas movie: “Showgirls.”
One of the most thoughtful critics of “Casino” was Rosenthal himself, who died in 2008.
“The screen version of ‘Casino’ is a mixed bag,” he wrote on his still-functioning website, frankleftyrosenthal.com. “I couldn’t break down the degree of accuracy (non-fiction) versus dramatic license. The characters were well played, many of the scenes and events are relatively on target.”
Rosenthal had nothing but praise for De Niro and Pileggi, the latter of whom he wrote understood the characters better than Scorsese.
“While some of the timelines are askew, and events portrayed in the film were written for ‘The Big Screen,’ ” he wrote, “the film ‘Casino’ gives it’s (sic) audience a fact based snapshot of events and people behind the scenes from the ‘Good Old Days’ in Las Vegas.”