The film, based on Nicholas Pileggi’s contemporaneous book, covers a large story fraught with telling political, social and economic implications, but Scorsese and Pileggi tell it by concentrating on three central figures: Sam “Ace” Rothstein (Robert De Niro), a top gambler installed by the Kansas City mob to run their casino, which he does brilliantly Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci), Ace’s longtime best friend and impulsively violent enforcer who introduces street thuggery to the Vegas scene, and Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone), a veteran hustler who marries Ace for his money, falls into Nicky’s arms when she becomes unhappy and ends up helping to drag them, and the empire around them, down.īeginning with a startling car explosion that seemingly blows Ace Rothstein sky high, pic expands on Scorsese’s “Goodfellas” technique of introducing his characters, their milieu and m.o. Announcing its far-reaching operatic intentions in a flamboyant credit sequence, the film is a Paradise Lost about low-lifes, a story of the big one that got away, the bookend to “Bugsy,” an ironic tale about how some highly individualistic criminals had the whole world in their hands only to fumble it and blow the game for themselves.
