The movie Casino is all about betrayal, violence, treachery, and avarice. It’s not an uplifting story, but it is a deeply satisfying human drama. Its key characters do get their comeuppance in the end, but there is no space in this film for heroes. In fact there are no good guys at all. All of them are mired in their own greed and corruption.

Casino is a fascinating and revealing look at how the Mob ran Las Vegas in the days before the town turned into a family-friendly theme park. Based on a book written by Nicholas Pileggi, who had full access to the man who once ran casinos for the mob, this film feels almost like a documentary in parts. It lays bare the intricate web of corruption centered in the casinos, with tendrils reaching out to politicians, Teamsters unions, Chicago mobster bosses and the Midwest mafia based out of Kansas City.

There’s no doubt that the movie is very interesting and informative to anyone who has a passion for gambling. It shows the shady side of this place where money is king and it takes a lot of effort to make sure that you’re not getting scammed or cheated out of your hard-earned cash.

From the opening scene with deliberate echoes of the Copacabana sequence in Goodfellas to the final images of the Tangiers being demolished, this is one of Scorsese’s most interesting and compelling movies. Robert De Niro and Sharon Stone are both outstanding in their roles, and the rest of the cast is just as good.