After the mega-hit Goodfellas, Martin Scorsese and his team set their sights on the Sin City gambling circuit. Adapted from Nicholas Pileggi’s book Casino, the film is a hard-edged depiction of human greed and treachery. With no room for heroes, the film revolves around a few key characters. But De Niro is not the only one to shine; Sharon Stone gives a powerhouse performance as the tough and feisty Ginger McKenna, and Joe Pesci plays mob strong-arm Nicky Santoro.

Beneath the flashing lights and free drinks, casinos are rigged to slowly bleed their patrons of cash. In one brilliantly constructed early sequence with deliberate echoes of Goodfellas’ Copacabana interlude, a prowling Steadicam glides into the money counting rooms of the Tangiers, where Ace Rothstein (De Niro) skims a percentage of the slot machine take to give to his old-school bosses in Kansas City.

Despite the movie’s reputation as a violent epic, Scorsese has always used violence in service to the story rather than just for shock value or style. The scenes involving the torture of an innocent man using a vice, the car bombing of the Rothstein family, and even the death by overdose of Pesci’s character are all brutal but faithfully portray reality.

Like all of Scorsese’s work, Casino is complex and difficult to categorize. While some praise the film for its narrative depth and the performances, others have criticized it for its excessive use of violence and slow pacing. Nevertheless, Casino is generally seen as a significant and worthy successor to the mafia classics Mean Streets and Goodfellas.