Any vulgarities are intentional, however. READ MORE: Python 50 – Holy Flying Circus – Movie RewindĪnybody coming to Casino expecting another Goodfellas or even Mean Streets might be somewhat shocked at the more vulgar leanings of Scorsese’s 1995 work. It’s a character’s journey, or their soul, straight into hell and it’s very much where Casino is going to take us.

Henry’s story opened with a car, as does Casino, only where Henry’s story began on a darkened road and a violent murder in the trunk of a car, Ace Rothstein’s story, as portrayed by Robert De Niro, opens in a literally explosive manner, segueing into an intensely spectacular Saul Bass and Elaine Bass credit sequence that is ghastly, brilliant and so over the top that it pretty much sums up perfectly the three hour epic to follow. Goodfellas was very much a street-level film compared to recently releases in the Hollywood gangster hall of fame it wasn’t as Shakespearean as The Godfather, nor was as it intensely over the top as Brian De Palma’s Scarface, and yet being ‘a Martin Scorsese picture’ meant that it had all the hallmarks of a Scorsese film freeze frames, voiceovers, Rolling Stones on the soundtrack and a sense of style that never overtook the film having substance. To walk into Casino expecting another Goodfellas is perhaps unfair because while it is very much a Scorsese film about crime with many key Goodfellas alumni involved, both in front of and behind the camera, Casino is a considerably denser beast than the story of Henry Hill and his eventual ratting out of his friends to the Feds. A crime movie, directed by Martin Scorsese, co-written by Nicholas Pillegi and starring Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci that isn’t Goodfellas? Upon release in 1995, Casino was met with good reviews and a pretty decent box office run, but there was a feeling at the time that it wasn’t quite Goodfellas.

Casino 1995 explained