In Casino, Scorsese takes his familiar ingredients and applies them to the story of mob corruption in Sin City. He gives his players a chance to rise to the top, but their lust for money and power ultimately leads them down the path of destruction. In the end, it’s a fascinating study of greed and betrayal.

Unlike Goodfellas, which took a ground-level view of the blue collar gangsters of New York, Casino is more aptly described as a top-down look at mob control of the gambling industry in Las Vegas. The film opens with a car bombing and a flashback to the Stardust Hotel in 1955. Then we see Sam “Ace” Rothstein (Robert De Niro) run the Tangiers, a fictionalized version of the real-life Stardust and other mob-backed casinos.

Casino is a gripping tale of the corruption that ran rampant in the early 1980s in the casino business. Unlike other movies that portray mobsters and their associates, Casino doesn’t have any good guys. Every character is mired in violence, treachery and avarice. The only exception is Sharon Stone, who gives one of the most intense performances of her career.

It’s a film that’s a notch below the likes of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, but it’s still a masterful piece of cinema. Whether it’s the way the movie lingers over the details of a mob hit or the frenetic pace at which it moves, Casino is a true thriller. It’s also a showcase for Martin Scorsese’s unbridled sense of cinema, which he shares with the great directors of his time, such as Kubrick and Spielberg. He has a gift for knowing what shot should follow what and is an absolute master of camera movements, angles and framing.