A film of dazzling depth, Casino features outstanding performances from Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and the late Sharon Stone. It is a story about betrayal, greed, and the ultimate destruction of a family unit. It also offers a stinging social commentary. It is about people who are given a space to do whatever they want without being watched and judged, but who eventually destroy paradise through their own selfishness and shortsightedness.

The movie’s moral commentary is rooted in its narrative structure, but it also finds expression in the visual language. The camera frequently enters scenes from a high vantage point, as though it were a god looking down on the action and judging it.

There is a sense that the characters in Casino are preoccupied with the idea of being watched. This is perhaps a reaction to the heightened media attention surrounding mob movies at the time. In addition, the director consistently smothers the edge of the frame in darkness, suggesting that the subjects of the shot exist in something like a moral vacuum.

Despite their wealth, it is clear that the mobster’s lives are not a paradise. They are rife with corruption, and their actions have consequences. When the federal government catches up with them, it is usually through the work of low-level mobster employees: the cooks in the casino who put “exactly the same number of blueberries in every muffin,” an airborne fed who crashes into a golf course while spying on the gangsters, or Ace’s habit of itemising his expenses.