Casino 1996

Those expecting the passion of Raging Bull or the unorthodox, quirky brilliance of The King Of Comedy may well be disappointed with Casino . But in the context of present-day American cinema, the film has a lot more resonance than Pulp Fiction and a deal more weight than Heat. If it's Goodfellas scented with The Godfather, that's a pretty good genealogy.

The tone of this portrait of fifties Las Vegas - brilliantly summoned by America's major film-maker - is resolutely ironic. De Niro as Ace, the manager of the casino in question and acting for the criminal underworld, gets blown up in his car in the first sequence but somehow lives beyond the end credits. He is a clay-footed Scorsese hero, but the supreme survivor - undone only by his inability to judge the woman he loves as dangerous.

A former gambler playing policeman for the Mob, Ace is determined to see that everyone plays straight so that his bosses can play crooked with maximum comfort and minimum fuss. Though brilliant at his job, two people up-end him: one is Joe Pesci 's Nicky, a violent crook and mercurial friend the other is Sharon Stone's Ginger, a girl whose psyche has been damaged beyond repair by booze, drugs and a low-life pimp (James Woods) to whom she is emotionally hooked.

The moral of the piece is simple: contrary to expectations, crooks are generally too stupid to profit from easy pickings and the big corporations that replace them are generally too intelligent to queer their pitches so easily.

You could say that both De Niro and Pesci have accomplished this much before - De Niro the apparently nerveless, disciplined loner and Pesci the flamboyant, carelessly murderous baby. But what you have to admit is that Sharon Stone has never before approached this state of acting grace. Her portrait of a woman for whom even happiness is unsatisfactory is often brilliantly done, and her final breakdown is achieved with genuine subtlety as well as power. But the film depends not only on its casting - all those old, mottled faces of the crooks nonchalantly bagging the money - but on the skill of its making.

The classic fall from grace of which the film speaks and with which Scorsese is so often obsessed is accomplished with some brilliant strokes of directorial panache. And Scorsese's ability to make us laugh at the absurdity of it all and squirm at the violence that has also to be part of the equation is unmatched. You can, and should, laugh. But be prepared for the smile to be wiped off your face.

The film's long journey, constructed almost like a mathematical equation, does not always avoid some sense of deja vu. There are bits of almost every movie Scorsese has made buried in it, and pieces of a hundred other crime thrillers too. You can look at the film from several vantage points and it will seem a little different. That's sometimes troubling. In a way, it's like a symphony you have heard before but can't quite remember when. But when its conducted and played as well as this, who really cares? Even my aversion to excessive length capsized in front of film-making of this quality, occasional warts and all.