There’s something oddly comforting about the fact that, in any column like this, Martin Scorsese is bound to show up early and often, like a cinematic Where’s Waldo, except Waldo is a tiny Italian man with big glasses and a penchant for voiceovers about moral rot. My first Scorsese entry? Casino. Of course it’s Casino. How could it not be? It’s Scorsese, De Niro, and Pesci, together again for the third time, as if someone in Hollywood woke up and thought, “You know what would make a great movie? Goodfellas, but with more sequins poker chips.” And so we got Casino, the neon-lit morality play about greed, betrayal, and the high-stakes art of not letting your eyeball pop out in a the storage room of a casino resort.
De Niro plays Sam “Ace” Rothstein, a gambler so precise he can calculate odds faster than a Vegas slot machine can take your mortgage payment. Ace is based on real-life casino boss Frank Rosenthal who is a man who knew how to squeeze every last dime out of both tourists and the Midwest mob bosses who bankrolled the operation down to the last blueberry. Pesci, meanwhile, is Nicky Santoro, loosely inspired by real-life gangster Anthony Spilotro, whose job is to “oversee” things for the mob. In practice, this means that Nicky spends most of the film robbing, threatening, and committing felonies while glaring at everyone like an unhinged, murderous chihuahua.
The genius of Casino is that Scorsese himself has admitted that the movie doesn’t really have a plot. There’s no traditional arc, no clear beginning, middle, and end. Instead, it’s all momentum; characters, narration, montages, and a breathtaking succession of conflicts that somehow make three hours feel like half of one. It’s a cinematic fever dream powered by nostalgia, greed, and an endless supply of voiceover.
And while the movie is overflowing with unforgettable moments, the slow-motion introduction of Sharon Stone’s Ginger as she throws casino chips in the air like a sequined goddess; the infamous “Charlie M” scene where Ace catches two cheaters, leading to the removal of at least one eyeball; or even the final montage of Vegas’s mob-controlled heyday slowly collapsing into the tourist trap we know today, none of those are the scene I keep coming back to.
The scene, the cinematic scene, comes near the end, in the barren Nevada desert, where Ace and Nicky meet to hash out what remains of their friendship. It’s here that Scorsese distills everything that makes his mob movies great: loyalty curdled into resentment, humor edged with menace, and the kind of casual threats that make you wonder if Joe Pesci was ever allowed to babysit.
Ace, clad in a perfectly tailored pastel suit (because even when you’re possibly meeting your death in the desert, you still need to look good), tries to reason with Nicky. De Niro plays him cool, methodical, as though this is just another high-stakes negotiation. Pesci, on the other hand, is a barely contained hurricane of rage, spitting venom about Ace’s supposed disloyalty, Judaism, and practically daring him to fight back. The tension is unbearable. It’s also funny, because Pesci has always been funny, his rants bordering on absurdist comedy, but it’s also terrifying, because you know that Pesci has killed for far less.
What makes the scene so electric is that Scorsese, as he often does, just lets his actors cook. It’s been said that De Niro and Pesci improvised much of their dialogue together, and if that’s true, this is improv at its finest. There’s no script could capture the way Pesci spits out “You talk about me, you talk about me behind my back, you jew motherfucker, you?” with such escalating fury that you half expect him to whip out a baseball bat. It’s two master actors, fully inhabiting their characters, circling each other like prizefighters who know this is the last round.
This moment in the desert encapsulates everything Casino is about: the fragile bonds of power, the volatility of trust, and the inevitability of betrayal when greed poisons everything it touches. And yet, because this is Scorsese, it’s also funny in that deeply uncomfortable way, like laughing at a wake because Uncle Vinny made an inappropriate joke about the cannoli.
Casino remains one of those rare films I could watch endlessly, 52 times a year, every year, maybe more. It doesn’t matter that I know what’s coming. The joy is in the details: the absurdity of mobsters who can’t resist micromanaging a casino’s blueberry distribution; the way Scorsese’s camera dances through the Tangiers like it’s on its own high; the operatic downfall of people who thought they were too smart to fail.
And yet, when I think about Casino, my mind always wanders back to that desert scene, a stretch of sand and sky where the glitz of Vegas vanishes, leaving only two men, their egos, and a friendship-turned-blood-feud. It’s Scorsese at his most distilled: no plot necessary, just two titans in a sunbaked arena, improvising their way toward tragedy.
