CINEMA: HIGH STAKES

(2 of 2)

So long as Casino stays focused on the excesses--of language, of violence, of ambition--in the life-styles of the rich and infamous, it remains a smart, knowing, if often repetitive, spectacle. But in its last hour, as it concentrates more and more on Ginger's increasingly desperate and degrading attempts to escape Sam's smothering affections, the film winds neurotically in on itself. And neither the controlled rage of De Niro's playing nor the entrapped ferocity of Stone's, as she breaks definitively with her sex-symbol past, can prevent the film--and its audience--from sinking into a been-here, seen-that mood.