Casino in the movies of world cinema look at Stremo
It’s no secret that the world cinema has dedicated an incredibly large number of films about casinos and gambling. Naturally, these films are not without desperate adventurers and violent representatives of the criminal world. And, of course, the girls. Today we will talk about five movies about casinos, which, in the opinion of the editors are not only interesting to watch, but also a cinematic masterpiece. They can be found easily on our Stremio Media Center.
Casino
“Casino is a drama film directed by Martin Scorsese. The plot is based on the book of the same name by Nicholas Pileggi and Larry Shandling. It premiered in theaters in the United States on November 22, 1995.
“Casino” is the third project of Martin Scorsese in the genre of gangster films, earlier were released films “Mean Streets” and “Goodfellas”. The participation of the De Niro – Pesci acting duo, who appeared with this director in the film “The Irishman” in the future, is also associated with the latter picture “Casino”.
Sam “Ace” Rothstein is a professional gambler and master gambler. No one is better at predicting the results of matches and contests than him. Mafia bosses in the Midwest decided to entrust him with running a casino in Las Vegas. Nicky Santoro, a racketeer and an old friend of Sam’s, was assigned to help him with security. For several years their business prospered, until Nicky got too involved with racketeering, organized crime and drugs.
Sam falls in love with an elite Las Vegas prostitute, Ginger McKenna. Realizing that she does not love him and knowing about Ginger’s dependence on another man, Sam decides to marry her and have a child anyway. Moreover, he puts in Ginger’s hands the only key to the two million dollars in cash in the bank safe deposit box, a key that ensures his freedom and safety that only she can use.
After a few years, Sam’s personal life presents huge problems: Ginger becomes addicted to alcohol and is almost never sober, she also takes drugs and is still enslaved by her passion for the pimp and petty crook Lester. However, Sam still loves Ginger and forgives her a lot, but it becomes impossible to turn a blind eye to the fact that his wife is ready to betray him at any moment. Ginger blackmails Sam with her daughter and has constant scandals and tantrums. Sam divorces her, managing to legally keep his daughter, but gives his ex-wife the money he promised her before he married her.
Nicky is blacklisted from gambling establishments. And since there are few places in Las Vegas that are not related to gambling in one way or another, Santoro is effectively banned from the city. With no intention of hiding, he becomes even more involved with organized crime in Las Vegas, and soon he and Sam have even bigger problems. The mob also begins to have problems with the FBI. The FBI keeps a close eye on all the criminals and collects detailed dossiers on Mafia members all the way to the top. A series of serious fights ensue between Sam and Nicky. Ginger becomes Nicky’s mistress and asks her to kill Sam, to which she is refused – Nicky is not going to kill her childhood friend over some prostitute. However, the Mafia bosses soon find out about the affair (according to the Omerta, such things are unacceptable and unforgivable).
In the meantime, the FBI, having gathered enough information, arrests one Mafia member after another. A preliminary hearing of the mafia bosses takes place in court, after which they confer right in the courtroom and decide to take out almost everyone who might know something and spill something. As a result, many members of the mafia, from the smallest co-conspirators to the junior bosses, are killed. Nicky also dies: at the order of the bosses, Santoro and his brother are beaten half to death with bats and then buried alive in a cornfield. Ginger, on the other hand, went to Los Angeles, got involved with drug addicts there, squandered nearly two million dollars in two months, and died of a drug overdose. After surviving an assassination attempt (his car was blown up, but he survived), Sam went back to where he started – playing the San Diego sweepstakes and deciding the winners.
Twenty one
“Twenty-One” is an American film-drama directed by Robert Luketich and based on Ben Mesrich’s 2003 novel, “Casino Strike. How to Score: The Real Story of Six Students Who Won Millions of Dollars in Las Vegas.” The U.S. premiere was scheduled for March 28, 2008, on Russian screens the picture was released on April 17, 2008. Starring Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, Jacob Pitts, Laurence Fishburne, Aaron Yu. It grossed $73,050,000 at the box office in the United States.
In the film, a team of five MIT students, led by a former gambler, now a respectable professor of higher mathematics with elements of probability theory, develops a plan by which the probability of winning a game of blackjack increases several times. For 12 weeks, the six-man team flies from Boston to Las Vegas every Sunday for the sole purpose of beating the casino.
Bachelor party in vegas
“The Hangover is a movie comedy directed by Todd Phillips and written by John Lucas and Scott Moore. Starring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis.
The film was made on a $35 million budget and was released in North America on June 5, 2009. “The Hangover in Vegas” was an immediate commercial success and audience approval. It became the tenth highest-grossing film of 2009, grossing $469.3 million worldwide. The film won the Golden Globe for Best Comedy Film.
Before celebrating their upcoming wedding, Doug and his friends and the bride’s brother Alan head to Las Vegas for a bachelor party, where they stay at the Caesars Palace Hotel.
Waking up the next morning, Phil, Stu and Alan try to remember the events of the previous night and discover that their friend Doug, who is about to get married, is missing. But the friends have other problems: Stu is missing one tooth, the hotel room is a mess, there’s a tiger in the bathroom, a chicken running in and out, and someone’s baby is in the closet. When the trio, taking the baby with them, leave the hotel, they see Doug’s mattress slung on the arm of a statue on the roof of the hotel. When the friends ask to have their Mercedes brought to them, a police car is brought to them instead.
Retracing their steps, the three friends head to the hospital where Phil went last night, where the doctor tells them that they have been injected with “raffinol,” a drug that causes memory loss. The doctor also tells them about a certain wedding in the chapel, which they kept talking about. When they arrive at the chapel, it is revealed that Stu married a stripper named Jade during the night, even though Stu was already in a relationship with his bitchy girlfriend Melissa.
Near the chapel, the trio is attacked by bandits, and the guys have to flee. After that they arrive at the very same Jade – she is the mother of the child. They do not manage to find out everything, because the police arrive and arrest the guys for stealing a patrol car. The cops tell them that their Mercedes has been impounded and that their release from custody is only possible by participating in a school demonstration (which, as it turns out, is a stun gun demonstration). After getting their car back, the three friends open the trunk, from which a naked Chinese man with a crowbar jumps out. He beats the guys pretty badly and then runs away. Meanwhile, Alan confesses that he put “rafinol” in their drinks (believing it to be ecstasy). He wanted everyone to feel “good.”
Returning to the hotel room, they meet Mike Tyson, who demands his tiger back in exchange for giving them information about Doug’s disappearance. After getting the tiger back, Mike Tyson shows them a hidden surveillance tape of them stealing the tiger and stuffing it into a car. This footage shows Doug still with them.
On the way back to the hotel, their Mercedes is rammed by Leslie Chow (that naked Chinese guy from the trunk) in his car. He demands $80,000 back, which Alan won for him at the casino that night. Otherwise, he kills Doug, sitting in the back seat of the car with a bag over his head.
After winning over $80,000 at the casino (with the help of Alan’s card-counting skills), the friends set out to make a deal with Chow. But as it turns out, Chow had another Doug, an African-American drug dealer who sold Alan “raffinol.” While talking to the rescued drug dealer, Stu suddenly guesses where their friend Doug is – on the roof of the hotel. The trio immediately go to the hotel, where they find Doug. The friends remember that they themselves dragged him and his mattress up to the roof at night.
Quickly packing up, the friends head home, for the wedding is about to begin. They make it, and Doug and Tracy’s wedding goes well, and Stu dumps his already annoying girlfriend. At the end, Alan finds Stu’s camera, which captures every moment of their nocturnal adventures. All of the footage is shown along with the credits to Flo Rida’s single “Right Round.”
Once upon a time in vegas
“Once Upon a Time in Vegas is a romantic comedy by Tom Vaughn starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher. The film was made by 20th Century Fox Studios in 2008. The title of the movie is a play on the American saying What Happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
Young New Yorker Joy (Cameron Diaz), a successful stockbroker, is abandoned by her fiancé. Wanting to unwind, Joy goes to Las Vegas, where she meets Jack (Ashton Kutcher), who was fired from his job by his father. The morning after a raucous party, they discover that they are married and want a divorce right away. After their frank conversation, they accidentally win a jackpot of three million dollars, but the judge handling the divorce case freezes the entire amount for six months. To make matters worse, the judge orders the young people to do everything they can to keep the family together, including weekly visits to a marriage counselor (Queen Latifah).
Joy moves into her husband’s typical bachelor pad, where they poison each other’s lives. Their feelings gradually change, however, and the young people are no longer so sure they want to win the trial. With the help of Jack, who has charmed her boss (Dennis Farina) and has become the soul of the company, Joy achieves a promotion. Six months later, they are divorced, Joy gives up her half of the winnings in favor of Jack, and quits her job, giving her position to her rival with the words, “Better to do nothing than do nothing.” And she leaves for a secluded place, where Jack finds her a few days later. Both realize they want to be together again.
Va-bank
“Va-Bank” (Runner, Runner) is a 2013 American crime drama thriller directed by Brad Furman from a screenplay by Brian Koppelman and David Levine. Starring Ben Affleck, Justin Timberlake and Gemma Arterton.
Richie Furst is a student at Princeton University, formerly an employee of a large company that collapsed due to the 2008 crisis. Because of online casino ads, he is facing expulsion if he doesn’t stop spreading gambling at the university, so due to lack of funds to pay his tuition, he decides to play online poker with all the money he has left. But, he ends up losing all his money, losing to a man whose win rate is many times the resource average. As a result, he decides to find Ivan Block, the owner of the casino, in the hope that he can recover what he has lost.
To do so, Richie travels to Costa Rica, where Ivan is located. Through luminescence, he transmits a message through a surveillance camera, causing him to be detained by guards and brought to Ivan, where Richie tells him what happened and is taken away from the party. Then he is brought to the yacht, where Ivan tells him about the casino break-in, gives him all the money back and offers to stay at the company, to which Richie agrees. There is also a story about Ivan’s disagreement with Guerrero, the Costa Rican gambling commissioner, about the price of Guerrero’s job.
Richie becomes a successful employee and all goes well until he is kidnapped by Agent Shavers. Shavers accuses Ivan of crimes and, under threat of prison and inability to get a license to work in the casino and on Wall Street, forces Richie to work for himself. Richie tells Ivan what happened, and he calms him down and says Shavers is just jealous and can’t do anything.
Richie then assists in a number of illegal acts for Ivan and the casino, getting close to Rebecca along the way. In one of these assignments, he is beaten by Guerrero’s men for underpayment, causing Richie to argue with Ivan, who says that Richie is his subordinate and must do as he says. Richie tries to flee the country, but they plant heroin on him, and Shavers shows up saying that if Richie doesn’t help him, he’ll go to jail for drug dealing. Meanwhile, Cronin discovers that everything Shavers said is true, and that Ivan is involved in a cash scam at his casino.
Ivan informs him that he has bought up all of Richie’s father’s debts and now only he can do anything about it. Cronin then tells him over the phone that he has unearthed something on Ivan and asks Richie to come over, but at this point he offers to take a ride somewhere. Wilson brings Richie to the crocodile habitat, where Ivan dumps Guerrero in the river for beating his man. After this incident, Richie arrives home, but Cronin is not there, and all his belongings have been turned over. Rebecca comes over there and tells him that they are leaving in a few days and all the shooters will fall on him.
Shavers finds Richie and tells him that he will set him up with Ivan if he doesn’t help him. At home Richie finds a flash drive with all the evidence Cronin left behind and learns that Ivan has copied everything to him to divert suspicion from himself. Then he makes a deal with the pilot of Ivan’s plane, and the plane lands in Puerto Rico, where Shavers arrests Ivan. Richie hands the flash drive with the evidence to Shavers and flies away on Ivan’s plane with Rebecca.
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