Casino/Two Bits/Money Train/Nick of Time/Frankie Starlight

Gene Siskel - Host: I loved looking at "Casino". Each shot is beautifully composed, and the quasi-documentary scenes are sometimes thrilling. But the characters are familiar, based on the book by "Goodfellas" screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi, and as I watched this movie, repeatedly I felt that director Martin Scorsese, America's best, may have come to the end of this mob milieu. He's told this story in different times and places, in much more exciting ways. One note: I wish I could've showed you one of the many violent scenes in "Casino", but the distributor isn't releasing any of the brutal beatings. They're trying to sell this as a love story, but as a love story, "Casino" doesn't work. So a mixed review, but ultimately, thumbs down for me.

Roger Ebert - Host: Thumbs down?

Gene Siskel - Host: Yep.

Roger Ebert - Host: I'm astonished.

Gene Siskel - Host: I, uh...

[chuckles]

Gene Siskel - Host: you think this was fresh?

Roger Ebert - Host: Uh, I... at the very least, Gene, it's thumbs up, and I think it's a lot better than that. And I'll just point out one thing: You didn't like the relationship between DeNiro and Sharon Stone?

Gene Siskel - Host: Not at all. No.

Roger Ebert - Host: To me, that was fascinating. This is a breakthrough for Scorsese who, throughout his career, has always had this kind of female relationship involving the guy who loves the woman up to a point and then decides she's no good or not good enough for him. And in this film, here's a guy who tries to be reasonable, who feels he can buy and control and figure out the odds on everything, and he gets a woman who won't be controlled like that, who is a wild card, and that is why, not only his life comes to pieces, but because of this relationship with this woman, the mob loses out in Vegas entirely. It's a fascinating story...

Gene Siskel - Host: You think...

Roger Ebert - Host: ...About how just the lust and love between these two people eventually led to the mob leaving Vegas altogether.

Gene Siskel - Host: I think that you read the picture the wrong way. I think that exactly what happens is, in, in a shot of a big lion, and I'll leave it like that, you understand the dynamic that REALLY pushed the mob out of Vegas: It was corporations, not one man's love story.

Roger Ebert - Host: Oh, you're talking about the junk bonds took over from the teamsters fund as a source of financing. That, in itself, is a fascinating other aspect to this movie. One of the things about the movie I liked is the amount of information it has. How the casinos operate, how they...

Gene Siskel - Host: Those are...

Roger Ebert - Host: ...Enforce security. How they took care of that guy at the blackjack table by giving him a phony heart attack so they could get him into the back room...

Gene Siskel - Host: The docudrama stuff...

Roger Ebert - Host: ...And pound on him. This stuff is terrific.

Gene Siskel - Host: The docudrama stuff, it's all of the personal stories, you never felt that you had seen this stuff before?

Roger Ebert - Host: I...

Gene Siskel - Host: I'm talking personal stuff. Pesci, you hadn't seen that stuff with DeNiro?

Roger Ebert - Host: I hadn't seen it in this way. And nevertheless, even if I HAD, I saw it before in "Goodfellas", that was a great movie.

Gene Siskel - Host: A great movie.

Roger Ebert - Host: It was your choice of the best movie of the year.

Gene Siskel - Host: Great movie.

Roger Ebert - Host: To actually tell people they don't think they should see Martin Scorsese's "Casino" is shocking to me. I can think of two hundred movies this year that I would tell them not to see before I get to this one. This is a very watchable movie.

Gene Siskel - Host: Certain sections of it are watchable, I'm really grading this as a movie by Scorsese, and this is not his best work.

Roger Ebert - Host: Well, as somebody else, how would you grade it? It would be thumbs up if it was from some other director?

Gene Siskel - Host: Uh, I don't think so, Roger. I think I would've said this is an uneven piece.