DVD Review- Casino
Date written- 09.04.04

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It's strange to think that for as much as like the mob movies, I don't own many of them. Hmm. Anyhow, Casino is one of those movies that'll make you cry. I don't mean that you're crying because the film has stirred such passionate and strong emotions inside of you that you simply must weep, I mean that you'll cry because Sam "Ace" Rothstein is a smart guy with a good head on his shoulders and a million dollar casino in Vegas and loses it all through no fault of his own. Because of bad choices in friends, business associates and women, his whole operation comes crashing down around his ears in a hailfire of FBI investigations, lawsuits and mob bullets. It's just sad! And it's yet more proof that if you're a millionaire living the high life, DON'T FREAKING GET MARRIED!!! Them ho's will take all your money and kids! Hahaha, kidding!

And the ending kind of sucked too. And I mean the last two or so minutes of the film with a voiceover by Robert De Niro where he sends the film riding off into the sunset by way of a soliloquy about how cool the old school Vegas was and how much the new one (owned and operated "by the big corporations") just sucks ass and blah blah blah. Other than that, the movie is fantastic.

The 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer looks good. Grainy, but not in a bad way. Very filmlike. Fleshtones appear accurate, although the film was shot using several filters and so forth, so scenes involving harsh lighting result in a ghostly halo around people, objects and pretty much anything on the camera at the time. That's a stylistic choice employed by Scorsese, it's not a fault with the transfer, but I've got to mention it because these types of scenes tend to make the trace amounts of edge enhancement slightly more noticeable. No big deal overall though. Contrast is a little off and blacks aren't as strong as you'd hope. A decent transfer, I suppose.

The Dolby 5.1 soundtrack is just okay too. Deep bass is occasionally used during scenes involving music, but mostly the subwoofer is fairly inactive. Likewise, the surrounds are usually only engaged for musical purposes. The film is primarily dialog-oriented, so no big shock there. Dynamic range is sharp and accurate and dialog is occasionally muffled once or twice, which is no surprise considering how low and softly some characters in the film speak. The overall soundstage feels a little thin and while there is some sense of envelopment, the casino sequences represent a lost opportunity in my opinion because the surrounds could be used for jackpot bells of the slot machines, idle chatter, roulette wheels and other noises from your average casino. Nothing of the sort occurs!

Extras? What extras? You get a trailer, some production notes and that's it. No commentary, no documentary, nothing! On the other hand, this is a pretty long film, so the extras would pretty much have to go on a second DVD or else the video would have to be really compressed to fit everything on to one DVD. But still, I cannot excuse the lack of effort in this department.