Casino: 10th Anniversary Edition
Universal Studios Home Entertainment

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Equal parts historical biography, casino operations primer and good old-fashioned mob drama, Martin Scorsese's three-hour Las Vegas epic set in and around the fictional Tangiers casino in the 1970s is a must-see for everyone but the squeamish. Robert De Niro stars as infallible bookmaker turned shrewd casino operator Sam "Ace" Rothstein, Sharon Stone is his coke-huffing, gold-digging trophy wife Ginger and Joe Pesci plays loose cannon mob enforcer Nicky Santoro whose hot head -- he tortures one guy by squeezing his skull in a vice -- attracts the unwanted attention of the authorities.

Set in the late '70s before corporate America turned the cowboy town into a theme park resort, it's both a powerful personal drama and a gorgeous glimpse at the last days of Sin City as an outlaw town where anything you can pay for goes. GoodFellas author Nicholas Pileggi's script is inspired by the real-life dealings between one-time Stardust casino operator Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, reputed hitman Anthony "The Ant" Spilotro and the woman who came between them. With James Woods, Don Rickles and L.Q. Jones.

The two-sided disk is a film buff's jackpot and a historian's dream. In an alternate audio track -- dubbed "Moments with Martin Scorsese, Sharon Stone, Nicholas Pileggi and More" instead of the usual "Filmmakers' Commentary" -- the director discusses the movie in Biblical terms of gods, hubris, redemption and excess, while producer Barbara De Fina goes into more practical matters of getting clearances through Universal's legal department to change names and not impugn characters (e.g. real-life mobsters wives) who weren't officially convicted of anything. When we watch the bonus featurettes -- e.g. "Casino: The Story" and "Casino: The Cast and Characters" -- we realize the aforementioned audio commentary was cobbled together from these video interviews and placed seamlessly atop the movie instead of having the filmmakers watch the movie and comment on it as it unspools. Author Pileggi confesses about getting stonewalled by the mob until it made the papers that De Niro would be starring in their story and his phone started ringing off the hook. In a fascinating 2004 NBC News segment titled "Vegas and the Mob," the real-life Frank Rosenthal, now retired in Florida, grants a rare interview, while former mob lawyer and current Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman (who plays himself in Casino) tells war stories about the old Vegas and his notorious clients. Upon its theatrical release, Casino had its acolytes and its detractors. Ten years later, this disk illuminates the movie as a modern masterpiece.

by Rob. Walton