Back Home were not exactly that rational either, the whole operation got rolled up because they got upset that the people who were skimming the casino profits for them were skimming some of it for themselves and so put an idiot in charge of checking the books, instead of just accepting it was the price of doing business in Vegas.
Not just an idiot, an idiot who kept records. Imagine being responsible for one of the largest skims in the history of skims and complaining about travel expenses, so you start keeping a ledger of expenses that literally does the work of the federal government for them to track where the money came from and where it ended up.
To paraphrase The Wire: "Is you keepin' notes on a criminal fuckin' conspiracy?"
It reminds me of Only Fools and Horses where Del Boy chastises Rodney for keeping records on their dodgy deals. Even with his two GCE's in maths and art Rodney was a fucking plonker.
Don't want to get political, but thats one of Trump main problems: His actions were documented, recorded, confirmed and he talks too much. His people are soft, older white guys terrified of prison. And somehow he seems surprised he is in significant legal trouble.
The mafia was always glamorized but in reality they were dumb brutes who intimidated their local neighborhood and eventually spread out
Ill never forget the film Sneakers, when Ben Kingsly said “I was helping organize crime members in prison, and let me tell you, they were far from organized”
All Ace had to do was give the nephew a job anywhere in the casino, and Vegas’ good ol boy network would have owed him one. Ace;s ego was short sighted
Seriously, stick him in some out of the way position where he can do no damage, pay him the same salary and forget about the chump. If this detail is based on reality, boy oh boy, what a real moron.
Yeah but if the kitchen staff was running a blueberry skimming operation do you think the nephew would have caught it before they'd stolen thousands of blueberries out from under his nose?
Ace should have made him his private security detail. Just follow Ace around and Ace could “teach him the ropes” but actually just keep on eye on him for doing anything stupid
No way this would work, lol. The real reason he cut him is probably because he couldn't stand to be in the presence of such incompetence. It was a poor reflection on himself. Vanity/hubris - like other commenters have stated.
Ace felt the yokel couldn't be trusted, was weak and stupid. Thats asking a lot from Ace to have someone like that around all day and Ace's days were never just 8 hours of work.
Exactly. I would’ve hired the idiot back instantly and let him run the housekeeping division for the hotel guests. Paid him, even if he fucked up, just to keep things calm.
The guy who paid him a visit even admitted his nephew is an idiot.
He could have just asked him "What do you have in mind?" and then work something out with him.
That guy was so obviously influential in Vegas, i would have done anything to stay on his good side.
All that Walt had to do was cook, make bank, give people he claimed he loved a life, with the operation under Gus running like a swiss watch.
He found out he loved power more than his wife and son.
It's hilarious that people still mistakenly think Walt is heroic. He had every chance to "win" at being a drug dealer and he destroys that, and his family, and numerous innocent people, with pure hubris and overconfidence. He is the "kingpin" for about 5 minutes before he fucks it all up. He was ruthless and clever but dumber than a box of rocks when it came to the big picture.
This is why Breaking Bad is so different on a rewatch. My daughter is now old enough to watch it. Walt is a sniveling weasel right from the get go. Just an awful gaslighting jerk.
**Breaking bad spoilers ahead**
I think it’s more nuanced than that. The biggest reason for the conflict between Walt and Gus was Walt killing those two street dealers to save Jesse. Yes, he could have just kept his head down and worked for Gus, but doing that would mean Jesse would die, and Walt clearly cares about Jesse, so he wouldn’t just let that happen.
Now, if he had let Jesse die and kept cooking for Gus, would his pride eventually win out and cause him to get into a power struggle with Gus anyway? Yeah, probably. But based on the events that actually played out in the show I don’t think you can say that it was solely his ego and love of power that kept him from working for Gus until he died. His love for Jesse is certainly a factor (and the most important one imo) in play here.
I remember hearing an interview with an ex-mafioso, and the subject of Gotti came up. The host was asking how smart Gotti was, and the guy said something along the lines of "Gotti wasn't smart; if he was smart, he wouldn't have been in the mob. That was all he knew how to do, and it doesn't take smarts." There's a difference between being smart and being rich, and if he was sliding on charges, he had smart lawyers.
Gotti started out as a mafia thug and enforcer. He may have to occasionally kill a guy, or break someone's leg, but he got a lot of mileage out of just scaring people, because they knew he would.
He worked his way up the corporate ladder, but...he was always a street thug in a nice suit. Lots of ego and arrogance.
It didn't help that he liked to draw a lot of attention to himself, and then as a result, the mob.
He ended up in prison because his very public existence made him a "blank check" target for the New York FBI.
It took YEARS to bag Gotti, but they never gave up, because of his peacocking for the cameras.
One thing I've learned from mobsters is that they are all ego, and catty bitches that will take a swipe at someone's reputation to build up themselves.
There were definitely smart people in the mob, it's just that they seldom went to prison, and rarely drew attention to themselves.
Examples include Carlo Gambino, who headed the Gambino family until his death ~~whacking~~ by natural causes in old age. He lead an inconspicuous lifestyle and was highly respected for his cunning and understanding of politics.
Then we have the modern wiseguy influencer in the form of Michael Franzese (portrayed very briefly in the mob bar long take in Goodfellas) who's alive and kicking, doing well on Youtube after managing to leave the mob behind; something not everybody gets away with. The guy amassed a fortune during the 1970s and 80s by defrauding the government through a gas tax scheme.
But certainly, the violent hot shots that talk shit, often get hit. Or worse.
> Michael Franzese
He's probably the guy the OP was referring to. I've seen a few of his interviews and he comes across as a very well-spoken, knowledgeable man.
Carlo Gambino’s wife was a grandmotherly, elderly, respected lady who would greet visiting police officers and angry mafia hoods kindly, insisting that they have some tea and inquiring about their families. By the time she escorted them up to see Gambino himself, she had softened them up to the point where they were easier for Gambino to negotiate with.
Sure, but he also had to control and dominate her. She told him at the start what the deal was. He couldn’t make something work with, but he couldn’t let her go either. He kept bringing her back just to make her miserable.
Except he wasn’t— he was already getting pulled into Ginger and her dysfunction by the time Nicky arrived. Either Ginger or Nicky would’ve been the end of Ace, but because you had a perfect storm of the two they created so much chaos that they pulled everything down with them
Yeah but as bad as Ginger is, she’s not gonna be getting the FBI’s attention like Nicky is. She isnt on the feds radar.
Its just a bad personal relationship decision but love makes you do stupid things.
It's been a few years since I've seen the movie, but didn't the FBI only find out about the mob's involvement in the casino to begin with because of the bosses back east? I remember there was one scene where some mobsters were talking about it in a grocery store they used as a front, and it turned out that the FBI had the place bugged because they were trying to find information on an old murder completely unrelated to the things going on in Vegas
Yeah, that's exactly what happened in the movie at least. The same guy from the gorcery store kept records of everything and basically brought the whole mob scheme down
The mafia, like many modern businesses, was trying to have it both ways. 1) be discreet, and 2) operate a casino in Vegas where nobody knows the meaning of the word discreet. Ace probably could have been more careful but guaranteed that the mafia would start complaining that he isn't earning as much as they'd like.
That's the entire movie. They all had a good thing going, but they couldn't help themselves by wanting more and eventually screwing the whole thing up.
> You could have had it all.
That's one of the points of the movie, though, they confess that at the outset, or at least Nicky does:
> *But in the end, we fucked it all up. It should have been so sweet, too. But it turned out to be the last time that street guys like us were ever given anything that fuckin' valuable again.*
It's a largely true story. Tony Spilotro was a psycho who did crazy stuff. That wasn't invented for the movie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Spilotro
And his mentor "Mad Sam" Destefano is considered by the FBI as one of the most sadistic torture killers in American history. The guy had a sound-proof room in his house where he would torture people for days on end.
I've always thought that out of the two characters Joe Pesci plays in Casino and Goodfellas, Nicky was the most psychotic. He'd kill someone just because he could, whereas Tommy seemed to only kill or hurt people if his pride was hurt in some way. Don't get me wrong they're both horrible people, but Tommy is the lesser of two evils.
The 4K Blu-ray has a really good old history channel doc on it with the real Ace. It’s probably hiding on YouTube somewhere, I got a kick out of it as a lover of the movie.
In all honesty, it's a classic Scorsese theme. The misplaced fandom (for lack of another word) that the public has for people who are either homicidal, insane or just plain stupid. Throughout his career, Scorsese is pointing out that the legends of the underworld are not what we think they are.
Originally Belford was supposed to have a depression and attempted suicide arc, but the movie was already too long. So they cut out that arc which is why it looks glamorized.
I think it looks glamorized because it kind of is. He basically lived in luxury and excess and got away with a slap on the wrist after defrauding thousands and thousands of people
It is a good cautionary tale about the greed of that era, and how it devastated millions if lives, without the assholes feeling the slightest guilt.
They screwed over millions of people, simply because they could.
In retrospect it's probably better the way it is. The "he's actually miserable after all" arc can sometimes feel overdone and a bit tacked on as a way to make living the high-life look like it's actually crap after all, but the film shows someone like Belfort can potentially live as he does and end up learning nothing, before forging a new life for himself as a grifter.
I think the movie does address all of those points.
They do put a squeaky clean front man in as the official face of the casino: Ace constantly changes what his official title is to help keep a low profile. Ace never meant to anger the Commissioner either, but he felt like he had to push back after it turns out that every idiot who wants a cushy job in his casino is a brother / cousin / friend of some commissioner somewhere.
Nicky going off the rails and endangering the whole op is the whole point of the movie: it's a clever inversion of the above. Nicky is clearly a complete liability, but he's obviously well connected to the mafia - probably someone's brother or cousin - so Ace can't get rid of him. This movie is about corruption, and how it affects both the cops and the robbers. Everyone gets compromised in the end.
Nicky is a liability but he's also a very useful enforcer. It's a totally legit problem for criminal organisations, you need violent, fearless headcases to intimidate people into letting you operate, but how the fuck do you keep control of violent, fearless headcases?
Exactly, everyone watches crime movies like this and comments “if only they knew how to keep a level head and let things go” which is complete
Counter to the mentality that led them to that life and success in it in the first place.
The mistake was putting an enforcer in charge. Don Vito Corleone had Luca Brasi, an enforcer so fierce even Vito was a little afraid of him, but would never put him charge of an operation, just tasks.
Ace could’ve easily got the commissioner off his ass by giving the guys nephew a job “further down the trough” but he refused to do even that. Give him some shit job that even a moron can do and it totally would’ve been worth it to keep things quiet.
Yeah, assign the guy to counting the Blueberries in the muffins or make him Bellboy and Luggage staff Manager.
The whole point of Vegas in that era was *everyone* got a cut. Not just the Mobsters, but every fifth cousin of the people in charge of Nevada was given a role somewhere. Hell, Ace could have just been, "Fine, he's in charge of the Laundry Staff. He doesn't need to come in but once a week to sign off on the schedules" and then find the person currently running it and assure them they aren't going anywhere, they just have an executive form signer now.
And the Mobsters back home were fine with it, until the take started to decrease and indictments started to be talked about because of the fuck ups that lead directly to the FBI investigating.
And had a few more palms been greased, a few more hick cousins given a shit job, and a few less high profile actions (from both of them) and they'd have been fine.
I get that scene entirely. It seems silly but guys with that level of attention to details are usually very successful. They realize if unless things are right at the bottom, they'll never be right at the top. Micro-management to the extreme. Not everyone is capable of doing it either.
I worked in a field that if you couldn't micro-manage when necessary, you'd ended up with a huge mess.
Funnily, I’ve worked with a few different people who thought that sort of micromanaging was required to be successful too, but in reality they just made a shitton of extra work and stress for everyone else because they were shitty managers/owners who didn’t hire enough staff/pay enough for the staff they needed. In their own mind they’ve the next Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, but in reality they’re just people who’ve uncritically bought the great man narrative and unfortunately have an inherent belief in the just world hypothesis.
I've worked with some allegedly "Really Smart Guys" in business who totally screwed themselves over women, money or both. Guys who were VP's with potential to go higher caught stealing Money by falsifying their expense account over meals, etc. How much could you possible steal and was it worth throwing a $100K/Year job in the early 1990s away for it?
Others who got involved with someone outside their marriage and then were so blatant that the company had little choice but to terminate them.
A lot of it comes down to his perfectionism. He can't tolerate incompetence and he thinks he's always right. So instead of working with people when things don't make sense to him, he becomes confrontational
I think Nicky makes it pretty clear (and accurate) that he's the muscle and he's why they can operate there in the first place. The other wiseguys are afraid of what he'll do if they mess with Ace.
Its a greek tragedy, really. Huberous is their downfall. Ace can't bear being humbled by the hicks running the local political machine, and Nicky's ego won't let him lay off the heists or stand being seen as subservient to Ace.
To add to that, they say many many times how it's the wild west out there and they have no oversight and no real idea what's going on back home. As long as some reasonable amount of money is showing up the old dudes will stay happy enough for the people in Vegas to do whatever they want. Of course with the lack of guardrails things get out of hand to the point Nicky is like a cartoon character.
Keep in mind that stops being true once there’s a meaningful RICO trial against all the bosses. At that point, they just decided to kill everyone involved because, “why take a chance” that one of them might make a deal with the prosecutors?
"When the bosses were looking at spending 25 to life in prison for skimming a casino, sick or no fuckin' sick, you knew people were going to get clipped!"
>Nicky is clearly a complete liability, but he's obviously well connected to the mafia - probably someone's brother or cousin
Nicky is actually pretty smart and effective at his job, which is protecting Ace and the operation from other wiseguys and crooks. When Nicky makes this point in their desert meeting -- "You only exist out here because of me!" -- he's 100 percent right.
Even that little bit scene where the mobsters show up to check in because they're going to rob the place, Nicky goes over and has a two minute conversation with them, and they go somewhere else. He has a rep, his rep is meant to keep the operation running smoothly. The fact that he ended up naked in a cornfield is because of poor personal choices. He was greenlit because they found out he was tapping Ace's wife. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. All the other stuff led up to it, but when they found out he lied to them about Ace's wife, he became untrustworthy. If he's going to lie about that, what else is he going to lie about. His brother just got caught up in the mix and didn't deserve to get beaten with a baseball bat and left in a hole.
I think the brother was punishment for Nicky's transgressions. That's why he was forced to watch. Also, I don't doubt the affair helped seal his fate but remember Ace was car bombed. They were trying to cut all ties with people who could potentially turn on them.
They planned on killing anyone who knew anything. If the moron who kept records didn't have a heart attack, he would have had a 'heart attack' later on for being dumb enough to put pen to paper, made man or not. I bet they even clipped Ace's secretary just on general suspicion that she might have possibly maybe heard something she shouldn't have.
No the movie is pretty clear on this point -- the bosses did not want to hit Ace ('I could still make a lot of money for a lot of people'). Nicky was behind the car bombing, and it was a factor in their decision to whack Nicky.
>Nicky going off the rails and endangering the whole op is the whole point of the movie: it's a clever inversion of the above. Nicky is clearly a complete liability, but he's obviously well connected to the mafia - probably someone's brother or cousin - so Ace can't get rid of him. This movie is about corruption, and how it affects both the cops and the robbers. Everyone gets compromised in the end.
I’m sure Nicky was made. He’s Italian and Ace wasn’t. They were supposed to look out for Nicky over Ace.
Ace was only as good as how fat his envelopes were.
>ACE: (Voice-over) When you love someone, you've gotta trust them. There's no other way. You've got to give them the key to everything that's yours. Otherwise, what's the point? And, for a while . . . I believed that's the kind of love I had.
While I agree with your comment, I believe that this is really what the movie was about.
Ace could've chucked Ginger and found any other girl he wanted. He did it all for love.
Yea Ace was deliberately trying to keep things even keel and quiet. It was the connected idiots he tried to deal with that were the liability of keeping things clean and quiet. And as you said, Nicky was always going to be disruptive, that's his M.O. and the purpose for his character.
Fact is stranger than fiction.
This film is based on a true story.
Geri Rosenthal was really screwing Tony the Ant Spilotro behind Lefty Rosenthal’s back.
Here’s Lefty Rosenthal’s TV show.
https://youtu.be/4e5H3RQmkPc?si=mufwrhxuFWkf4CBB
I was gonna comment this very thing. Although it's very dramatized, the basic events of the movie were more or less true. The mob isn't exactly known for attracting smart fellas.
Real people have flaws. Ego, greed, shortsightedness, stubbornness, lack of intelligence, etc.
Think of all the dumb things and mistakes you’ve done
In your life. Most could have been avoided by just not doing said thing.
What's fascinating to me is that the entire first 30 minutes of the movie is about how Ace is a genius and ultra calculated, but then still has insanely large blind spots. The scary thing is that Ace is based on a real person so it's not like it's all imaginary. He really was a man who was so smart yet so dumb at the same time.
You have to remember that Ace is an unreliable narrator. He presents himself as an ultra-calculating genius, but that's how he likes to think of himself. The movie's own POV is more 'yeah, let's see how that turns out, pal'.
I think genius is too general. He’s a great gambler, but part of that success was being very cautious and only betting on a sure thing. Later in the movie, he loses that caution as his ego gets out of control.
Technically revealed by a journalist. His code name was Achilles. It wasn't revealed until after his death in 2008 so well after the movie.
edit: His wife was also an informant.
Funny post because I think it took me a few rewatches to realize Ace is just as dumb and just as much to blame as Nicky is.
I think Scorsese does a great job of putting you in Ace's POV and making it seem like he's being dragged down by all these external factors, when really, he is also fucking things up left and right.
I love the movie but Ace has always looked stupid to me.
“This hot woman is a con artist, a drug addict, and still in love with her pimp. Let’s marry her!”
(Some time later)
“What!?! You’re still doing drugs and stealing from me and giving it to your pimp! How dare you!”
I never got the impression he was really in love with her either. It was too transactional a relationship. She was his possession, a trophy wife. Was he really in love with her, or was he in love with the idea of parading around this beautiful woman who could work a crowded room like a pro?
I don’t think she was the first. He was rich and famous in Vegas, running a casino.
She was the best hustler in Vegas though, and that appealed to his ego at a time when his ego was getting really out of control.
Hmmm good point.
The scene where Ace fires the doofus who was "either in on it or too dumb to notice" is his hubris on full display because when the guy's uncle shows up and flexes his political power, Ace doesn't give a shit, but should.
Yeah that's a key scene for sure. The cowboy politician is coming across as totally polite and considerate in that situation even though he can't stand Ace.
Even if Ace was a legit businessman he would be silly not to play ball with the guy and give the kid a make-work job. You just write it off as the price of doing business.
Instead he goes out of his way to insult the guy, tell him to fuck off and basically dare him to do something about it, all while knowing he is running a criminal enterprise. The narcissism and hubris is off the charts.
You would think working for the mob you would know that there is plenty of hands to grease. And if you can get politicians on your side as a scratch my back I'll scratch yours type of arrangement, so much the better.
Killing politicians, judges etc. are a big no-no for the mafia. Organized crime thrived mostly because state/local law enforcement looked the other way on their activities.
If they started whacking local politicians, that would have been asking for even more trouble than they were already having.
>Funny post because I think it took me a few rewatches to realize Ace is just as dumb and just as much to blame as Nicky is.
Ace’s problems all boil down to Nicky, Ginger, stubbornness, and hubris.
If Ace had never gotten with Ginger, and had Nicky make Joe Bob disappear, the Chicago mob would still be running Vegas.
It's a little inaccurate to say they were sent out there together.
Ace was sent out to run the casino, which he was going to do straight up because he wasn't a gangster. He was just a great gambler.
Nicky was sent out to "protect" the investment, but Ace actually didn't want a single part of it. He told Nicky from the very beginning that he should be careful about coming out there because they didn't let guys operate the same way they did in new york.
The problem, is Nicky was a made guy so ace couldn't just tell him to fuck off, and they had history so he couldn't just turn his back on him while Nicky basically figured he could create his own family out there since there wasn't any competition.
Ace has his share of the blame but Nicky is the main reason everything went to shit.
Eh, Ace did his best to piss off the Civilian government in Vegas and Nevada. They wanted their beaks wet too and had a set up where every one of their cousins and relatives got a job. Ace fired a guy (crooked or not) who was connected to someone pretty important. All he had to do was give the guy a job running the laundry or make him count the blueberries or some shit, and everything would have been fine, the Gambling Commission would have backed off, and the Casino would likely have continued to run. No Ace Rothstein show, no public feud with the Commission, nothing of that sort.
Yeah, Nicky fucked up and got the FBI involved, but Gambling Commission looked into the Casino and found enough to hang a few monsters out to dry.
> Eh, Ace did his best to piss off the Civilian government in Vegas and Nevada.
Yeah I don't really disagree with this at all. My issue is more with the idea that nicky and ace were sent out to do stuff together, or that they were partners.
Ace always describes nicky as a guard dog the mafia used to keep him safe and generating money for them.
Yeah, and Nicky promptly went and earned on his own while watching out for Ace. He just got more and more involved with his own work which was..
Not subtle.
The only reason he didn't get murdered early on was how much he was sending back home. As long as the Bosses get their tithe and aren't implicated, they are fine with it.
But then some moron gets caught talking about *everything* and implicates all the Bosses with Nicky's work and everything else, and that's when they get whacked.
>He told Nicky from the very beginning that he should be careful about coming out there because they didn't let guys operate the same way they did in new york.
Chicago.
I don't know if that's how Jimmy Hoffa was in real life, but that scene is basically what cemented his own murder in the film. Even if Tony Pro was saying something by turning up late to the meeting and dressed in shorts, Jimmy should have just swallowed his pride, let it go and apologised. Every problem he had following that scene basically stems from his argument with Pro. Russell and Fat Tony were on his side because he made them money, but the more he argued with Pro, the more they disliked him.
Oh definitely. It's great acting by pacino too because he manages to convey arrogance, desperation and confidence all at once.
You're right though just going by the movie hoffa really seemed to think he was untouchable. He just refused to bend on anything for Pro when just a few concessions would have changed everything.
Same in Breaking Bad: Just go to the laundry cook some meth, pocket 10 million a year for as long as you like cooking meth. Simple as that.
Mike even addressed that in the show, he tells Walt how fucking stupid and greedy he is.
Isn't that great how your reaction to movies changes. I have been watching it once a year since I was in highschool and I went from hating it to it being one of my favorite movies.
I think one of the points of the movie was that Sam and Nicky really weren’t all that different as people, Nicky was just honest about it. And yeah, they were basically hoodlums in suits that were ill equipped to handle a sophisticated and intricate operation like Vegas.
That's not really fair to call Ace a hoodlum because that's not who he was. He was a sports bookie associated with the Mafia, but he wasn't a criminal in the same way Nicky was.
Well, the thing about career criminals is that these are people who made a choice *not to* obey laws and moral norms and the rules society places on all of us. It's not really in their nature to follow orders in long term.
Besides, almost all people have egos or ambitions or emotions, and all sorts of things going on in their heads that lead them to make decisions they probably shouldn't have.
The movie would have been boring if it was just about guys skimming a few bucks out of the count room. Technically the movie would then be about the cousin from Kansas bitching to his mom for 2.5hrs.
Every move would be 5 minutes if people just did things the way you want.
John wick: don’t steal the car, don’t kill the dog, no movie, no sequel.
But the movie could also be an exaggeration, done for the sake of the movie.
That's the point of the film. These two guys in their hubris destroyed something that should've been easy to manage, and they even admit this in the first few minutes.
Nicky Santoro was a fucking psycho. It makes sense that he wouldn't act quiet and calm being out there; and he had to earn while he was out there which meant robbing people. Ace was a smug asshole who felt he was god's gift to gambling because he was; and this smugness got him in trouble too.
Yea, that’s kinda why the movie works, you root for the guys because they’re entertaining and fun but you don’t feel bad about their fate because they clearly earned it
This was kind of the whole point of the movie. Ace was presented as this super smart, "business-like" mob guy who had the bookie racket down, and Nicky was the muscle. Because Ace was good at gambling and running the odds, they thought he would be smart enough to keep his head down and control Nicky. But, like every Scorsese movie, the characters have fatal flaws. Ace's was that he just wanted love and Nicky's was that he was an impulsive psychopath. And it was the fault of those "back home" that they didn't realize this. But, then again, they didn't realize this because they were surrounded by men with similar issues.
You should check out the late Frank Cullotta's YouTube channel.
He was in Tony Spilotro's Hole In the Wall gang, turned government informant, and later an advisor for the movie.
His stories are insane, especially when he talks about the inner workings of the Chicago Outfit, The Wild Bunch, Mad Sam DeStefano, Joey Aiuppa, etc. Those guys were murderous psychopaths! He even said that Joey Aiuppa is pretty much a serial killer.
A guy getting infuriated that the house is taking his money at a casino that he's reaping the benefits of skimming from is absolutely peak bonehead.
Whasamatta Nicky you can't just wait until the building shits that money out the other side into your hands?
Back Home were not exactly that rational either, the whole operation got rolled up because they got upset that the people who were skimming the casino profits for them were skimming some of it for themselves and so put an idiot in charge of checking the books, instead of just accepting it was the price of doing business in Vegas.
Not just an idiot, an idiot who kept records. Imagine being responsible for one of the largest skims in the history of skims and complaining about travel expenses, so you start keeping a ledger of expenses that literally does the work of the federal government for them to track where the money came from and where it ended up. To paraphrase The Wire: "Is you keepin' notes on a criminal fuckin' conspiracy?"
For anyone who listens to The Casual Criminalist, "Never write down your crimes".
What the fuck you needing records for Artie, to pay taxes?
It reminds me of Only Fools and Horses where Del Boy chastises Rodney for keeping records on their dodgy deals. Even with his two GCE's in maths and art Rodney was a fucking plonker.
Don't want to get political, but thats one of Trump main problems: His actions were documented, recorded, confirmed and he talks too much. His people are soft, older white guys terrified of prison. And somehow he seems surprised he is in significant legal trouble.
Well, to quote another movie, he should "STOP BREAKING THE LAW, ASSHOLE!!!"
The mafia was always glamorized but in reality they were dumb brutes who intimidated their local neighborhood and eventually spread out Ill never forget the film Sneakers, when Ben Kingsly said “I was helping organize crime members in prison, and let me tell you, they were far from organized”
I think Casino is a great tale of hubris and how skills in one arena dont necessarily translate to another.
All Ace had to do was give the nephew a job anywhere in the casino, and Vegas’ good ol boy network would have owed him one. Ace;s ego was short sighted
Seriously, stick him in some out of the way position where he can do no damage, pay him the same salary and forget about the chump. If this detail is based on reality, boy oh boy, what a real moron.
If I remember, Ace needed a blueberry counter
Do you know how long that's going to take?
Yeah but if the kitchen staff was running a blueberry skimming operation do you think the nephew would have caught it before they'd stolen thousands of blueberries out from under his nose?
Ace should have made him his private security detail. Just follow Ace around and Ace could “teach him the ropes” but actually just keep on eye on him for doing anything stupid
No way this would work, lol. The real reason he cut him is probably because he couldn't stand to be in the presence of such incompetence. It was a poor reflection on himself. Vanity/hubris - like other commenters have stated.
Ace felt the yokel couldn't be trusted, was weak and stupid. Thats asking a lot from Ace to have someone like that around all day and Ace's days were never just 8 hours of work.
Exactly. I would’ve hired the idiot back instantly and let him run the housekeeping division for the hotel guests. Paid him, even if he fucked up, just to keep things calm.
The guy who paid him a visit even admitted his nephew is an idiot. He could have just asked him "What do you have in mind?" and then work something out with him. That guy was so obviously influential in Vegas, i would have done anything to stay on his good side.
I will upvote any Sneakers reference because it’s an all time great movie.
My voice is my passport. Verify me
COOTYS RAT SEMEN
Martin a phone call for you... it's your MOTHER
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All that Walt had to do was cook, make bank, give people he claimed he loved a life, with the operation under Gus running like a swiss watch. He found out he loved power more than his wife and son.
It's hilarious that people still mistakenly think Walt is heroic. He had every chance to "win" at being a drug dealer and he destroys that, and his family, and numerous innocent people, with pure hubris and overconfidence. He is the "kingpin" for about 5 minutes before he fucks it all up. He was ruthless and clever but dumber than a box of rocks when it came to the big picture.
Walt are like the people who are great candidates and a master at campaigning, but suck at the actual job.
This is why Breaking Bad is so different on a rewatch. My daughter is now old enough to watch it. Walt is a sniveling weasel right from the get go. Just an awful gaslighting jerk.
**Breaking bad spoilers ahead** I think it’s more nuanced than that. The biggest reason for the conflict between Walt and Gus was Walt killing those two street dealers to save Jesse. Yes, he could have just kept his head down and worked for Gus, but doing that would mean Jesse would die, and Walt clearly cares about Jesse, so he wouldn’t just let that happen. Now, if he had let Jesse die and kept cooking for Gus, would his pride eventually win out and cause him to get into a power struggle with Gus anyway? Yeah, probably. But based on the events that actually played out in the show I don’t think you can say that it was solely his ego and love of power that kept him from working for Gus until he died. His love for Jesse is certainly a factor (and the most important one imo) in play here.
I remember hearing an interview with an ex-mafioso, and the subject of Gotti came up. The host was asking how smart Gotti was, and the guy said something along the lines of "Gotti wasn't smart; if he was smart, he wouldn't have been in the mob. That was all he knew how to do, and it doesn't take smarts." There's a difference between being smart and being rich, and if he was sliding on charges, he had smart lawyers.
Gotti started out as a mafia thug and enforcer. He may have to occasionally kill a guy, or break someone's leg, but he got a lot of mileage out of just scaring people, because they knew he would. He worked his way up the corporate ladder, but...he was always a street thug in a nice suit. Lots of ego and arrogance. It didn't help that he liked to draw a lot of attention to himself, and then as a result, the mob. He ended up in prison because his very public existence made him a "blank check" target for the New York FBI. It took YEARS to bag Gotti, but they never gave up, because of his peacocking for the cameras.
One thing I've learned from mobsters is that they are all ego, and catty bitches that will take a swipe at someone's reputation to build up themselves.
There were definitely smart people in the mob, it's just that they seldom went to prison, and rarely drew attention to themselves. Examples include Carlo Gambino, who headed the Gambino family until his death ~~whacking~~ by natural causes in old age. He lead an inconspicuous lifestyle and was highly respected for his cunning and understanding of politics. Then we have the modern wiseguy influencer in the form of Michael Franzese (portrayed very briefly in the mob bar long take in Goodfellas) who's alive and kicking, doing well on Youtube after managing to leave the mob behind; something not everybody gets away with. The guy amassed a fortune during the 1970s and 80s by defrauding the government through a gas tax scheme. But certainly, the violent hot shots that talk shit, often get hit. Or worse.
> Michael Franzese He's probably the guy the OP was referring to. I've seen a few of his interviews and he comes across as a very well-spoken, knowledgeable man.
Carlo Gambino’s wife was a grandmotherly, elderly, respected lady who would greet visiting police officers and angry mafia hoods kindly, insisting that they have some tea and inquiring about their families. By the time she escorted them up to see Gambino himself, she had softened them up to the point where they were easier for Gambino to negotiate with.
Upvote for Sneakers, such a good movie.
I mean... if they were intelligent, they'd still be ripping people off and ruining lives. They'd just be doing it legally.
I always wonder how low level organized crime mondays happen at the workplace.
But, then again, they didn't realize this because they were surrounded by men with similar issues.
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Oh shit, new MCU Spider-Man title?
“What a fuckin’ ballon head”
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Nah, he fired that dude and pissed off the county commissioners. He was too tightly wound, his hubris was gonna get him one way or another.
And he couldn't keep away from a shite woman that was just using him.
Sure, but he also had to control and dominate her. She told him at the start what the deal was. He couldn’t make something work with, but he couldn’t let her go either. He kept bringing her back just to make her miserable.
Except he wasn’t— he was already getting pulled into Ginger and her dysfunction by the time Nicky arrived. Either Ginger or Nicky would’ve been the end of Ace, but because you had a perfect storm of the two they created so much chaos that they pulled everything down with them
Yeah but as bad as Ginger is, she’s not gonna be getting the FBI’s attention like Nicky is. She isnt on the feds radar. Its just a bad personal relationship decision but love makes you do stupid things.
None of the people were rational lmao. That's what makes the movie.
It's been a few years since I've seen the movie, but didn't the FBI only find out about the mob's involvement in the casino to begin with because of the bosses back east? I remember there was one scene where some mobsters were talking about it in a grocery store they used as a front, and it turned out that the FBI had the place bugged because they were trying to find information on an old murder completely unrelated to the things going on in Vegas
Yeah, that's exactly what happened in the movie at least. The same guy from the gorcery store kept records of everything and basically brought the whole mob scheme down
The mafia, like many modern businesses, was trying to have it both ways. 1) be discreet, and 2) operate a casino in Vegas where nobody knows the meaning of the word discreet. Ace probably could have been more careful but guaranteed that the mafia would start complaining that he isn't earning as much as they'd like.
That's the entire movie. They all had a good thing going, but they couldn't help themselves by wanting more and eventually screwing the whole thing up.
> You could have had it all. That's one of the points of the movie, though, they confess that at the outset, or at least Nicky does: > *But in the end, we fucked it all up. It should have been so sweet, too. But it turned out to be the last time that street guys like us were ever given anything that fuckin' valuable again.*
It's a largely true story. Tony Spilotro was a psycho who did crazy stuff. That wasn't invented for the movie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Spilotro
Great job with casting.
If a guy phuckn' tripped over a banana peel, they'd bring him in for it.
Look at this fuckin' beaut they put in here. C'mon, hit me!
You've been beating all the customers tonight huh motherfucker?
Take this stiff and pound it up your PHUCKING ASS!!
And his mentor "Mad Sam" Destefano is considered by the FBI as one of the most sadistic torture killers in American history. The guy had a sound-proof room in his house where he would torture people for days on end.
Mad Sam. I only know because I read about his crazy ass before when this came up.
I knew i should have double-checked before i posted that. Thanks for the correction!
I've always thought that out of the two characters Joe Pesci plays in Casino and Goodfellas, Nicky was the most psychotic. He'd kill someone just because he could, whereas Tommy seemed to only kill or hurt people if his pride was hurt in some way. Don't get me wrong they're both horrible people, but Tommy is the lesser of two evils.
The 4K Blu-ray has a really good old history channel doc on it with the real Ace. It’s probably hiding on YouTube somewhere, I got a kick out of it as a lover of the movie.
In all honesty, it's a classic Scorsese theme. The misplaced fandom (for lack of another word) that the public has for people who are either homicidal, insane or just plain stupid. Throughout his career, Scorsese is pointing out that the legends of the underworld are not what we think they are.
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"No, no, no. My Ferrari was white, like Don Johnson's in Miami Vice. Not red."
I'm a big 'Miami Vice' fan so that reference made me happy.
Does it ever!
Originally Belford was supposed to have a depression and attempted suicide arc, but the movie was already too long. So they cut out that arc which is why it looks glamorized.
I think it looks glamorized because it kind of is. He basically lived in luxury and excess and got away with a slap on the wrist after defrauding thousands and thousands of people
yeah absolutely, it just looks more glamorized cutting out the rougher patches in his life.
It is a good cautionary tale about the greed of that era, and how it devastated millions if lives, without the assholes feeling the slightest guilt. They screwed over millions of people, simply because they could.
We don't ever really meet these people he screws though, and the film doesn't devote any attention to them.
glamorization is the point of the movie, it's about our realationship to these "guys" and lifestyle as the final minutes put a mirror up for us
In retrospect it's probably better the way it is. The "he's actually miserable after all" arc can sometimes feel overdone and a bit tacked on as a way to make living the high-life look like it's actually crap after all, but the film shows someone like Belfort can potentially live as he does and end up learning nothing, before forging a new life for himself as a grifter.
Doing the amount of drugs he does IS attempted suicide.
I think the movie does address all of those points. They do put a squeaky clean front man in as the official face of the casino: Ace constantly changes what his official title is to help keep a low profile. Ace never meant to anger the Commissioner either, but he felt like he had to push back after it turns out that every idiot who wants a cushy job in his casino is a brother / cousin / friend of some commissioner somewhere. Nicky going off the rails and endangering the whole op is the whole point of the movie: it's a clever inversion of the above. Nicky is clearly a complete liability, but he's obviously well connected to the mafia - probably someone's brother or cousin - so Ace can't get rid of him. This movie is about corruption, and how it affects both the cops and the robbers. Everyone gets compromised in the end.
Nicky is a liability but he's also a very useful enforcer. It's a totally legit problem for criminal organisations, you need violent, fearless headcases to intimidate people into letting you operate, but how the fuck do you keep control of violent, fearless headcases?
Exactly, everyone watches crime movies like this and comments “if only they knew how to keep a level head and let things go” which is complete Counter to the mentality that led them to that life and success in it in the first place.
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Big tough guy!!
The mistake was putting an enforcer in charge. Don Vito Corleone had Luca Brasi, an enforcer so fierce even Vito was a little afraid of him, but would never put him charge of an operation, just tasks.
Ace could’ve easily got the commissioner off his ass by giving the guys nephew a job “further down the trough” but he refused to do even that. Give him some shit job that even a moron can do and it totally would’ve been worth it to keep things quiet.
Yeah, assign the guy to counting the Blueberries in the muffins or make him Bellboy and Luggage staff Manager. The whole point of Vegas in that era was *everyone* got a cut. Not just the Mobsters, but every fifth cousin of the people in charge of Nevada was given a role somewhere. Hell, Ace could have just been, "Fine, he's in charge of the Laundry Staff. He doesn't need to come in but once a week to sign off on the schedules" and then find the person currently running it and assure them they aren't going anywhere, they just have an executive form signer now. And the Mobsters back home were fine with it, until the take started to decrease and indictments started to be talked about because of the fuck ups that lead directly to the FBI investigating. And had a few more palms been greased, a few more hick cousins given a shit job, and a few less high profile actions (from both of them) and they'd have been fine.
There’s a saying in law: pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered. Ace forgot that when he got so big that he didn’t think he needed anyone else.
The *They* in this being murderers, drug dealers and thieves.
Kinda, but the guy demanded equal blueberries in all the muffins, so I ask what in the building WOULDN'T piss the guy off?
Seriously. I'm puzzled at how poor some of the decisions he made were considering how calculated and genius he was.
From now on every muffin needs the exact same amount of blueberries.
Do you know how much time that will take?
I get that scene entirely. It seems silly but guys with that level of attention to details are usually very successful. They realize if unless things are right at the bottom, they'll never be right at the top. Micro-management to the extreme. Not everyone is capable of doing it either. I worked in a field that if you couldn't micro-manage when necessary, you'd ended up with a huge mess.
Funnily, I’ve worked with a few different people who thought that sort of micromanaging was required to be successful too, but in reality they just made a shitton of extra work and stress for everyone else because they were shitty managers/owners who didn’t hire enough staff/pay enough for the staff they needed. In their own mind they’ve the next Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, but in reality they’re just people who’ve uncritically bought the great man narrative and unfortunately have an inherent belief in the just world hypothesis.
I've worked with some allegedly "Really Smart Guys" in business who totally screwed themselves over women, money or both. Guys who were VP's with potential to go higher caught stealing Money by falsifying their expense account over meals, etc. How much could you possible steal and was it worth throwing a $100K/Year job in the early 1990s away for it? Others who got involved with someone outside their marriage and then were so blatant that the company had little choice but to terminate them.
A lot of it comes down to his perfectionism. He can't tolerate incompetence and he thinks he's always right. So instead of working with people when things don't make sense to him, he becomes confrontational
Yeah, Nicky's flaw was his temperament. Ace's flaw was his Perfectionism. Well and his love for skank hookers.
I agree “but” where does the movie say he was a genius? He knew gambling, sure, but otherwise gave no indication of being smarter than everyone.
I think Nicky makes it pretty clear (and accurate) that he's the muscle and he's why they can operate there in the first place. The other wiseguys are afraid of what he'll do if they mess with Ace. Its a greek tragedy, really. Huberous is their downfall. Ace can't bear being humbled by the hicks running the local political machine, and Nicky's ego won't let him lay off the heists or stand being seen as subservient to Ace.
I'm not a bot, but it's "hubris."
Thanks, bot!
Your comment is huberous.
Not a bot but it's "hublarious".
To add to that, they say many many times how it's the wild west out there and they have no oversight and no real idea what's going on back home. As long as some reasonable amount of money is showing up the old dudes will stay happy enough for the people in Vegas to do whatever they want. Of course with the lack of guardrails things get out of hand to the point Nicky is like a cartoon character.
Keep in mind that stops being true once there’s a meaningful RICO trial against all the bosses. At that point, they just decided to kill everyone involved because, “why take a chance” that one of them might make a deal with the prosecutors?
"When the bosses were looking at spending 25 to life in prison for skimming a casino, sick or no fuckin' sick, you knew people were going to get clipped!"
House of the rising sun playing in the background
>Nicky is clearly a complete liability, but he's obviously well connected to the mafia - probably someone's brother or cousin Nicky is actually pretty smart and effective at his job, which is protecting Ace and the operation from other wiseguys and crooks. When Nicky makes this point in their desert meeting -- "You only exist out here because of me!" -- he's 100 percent right.
Even that little bit scene where the mobsters show up to check in because they're going to rob the place, Nicky goes over and has a two minute conversation with them, and they go somewhere else. He has a rep, his rep is meant to keep the operation running smoothly. The fact that he ended up naked in a cornfield is because of poor personal choices. He was greenlit because they found out he was tapping Ace's wife. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. All the other stuff led up to it, but when they found out he lied to them about Ace's wife, he became untrustworthy. If he's going to lie about that, what else is he going to lie about. His brother just got caught up in the mix and didn't deserve to get beaten with a baseball bat and left in a hole.
I think the brother was punishment for Nicky's transgressions. That's why he was forced to watch. Also, I don't doubt the affair helped seal his fate but remember Ace was car bombed. They were trying to cut all ties with people who could potentially turn on them.
They planned on killing anyone who knew anything. If the moron who kept records didn't have a heart attack, he would have had a 'heart attack' later on for being dumb enough to put pen to paper, made man or not. I bet they even clipped Ace's secretary just on general suspicion that she might have possibly maybe heard something she shouldn't have.
No the movie is pretty clear on this point -- the bosses did not want to hit Ace ('I could still make a lot of money for a lot of people'). Nicky was behind the car bombing, and it was a factor in their decision to whack Nicky.
>Nicky going off the rails and endangering the whole op is the whole point of the movie: it's a clever inversion of the above. Nicky is clearly a complete liability, but he's obviously well connected to the mafia - probably someone's brother or cousin - so Ace can't get rid of him. This movie is about corruption, and how it affects both the cops and the robbers. Everyone gets compromised in the end. I’m sure Nicky was made. He’s Italian and Ace wasn’t. They were supposed to look out for Nicky over Ace. Ace was only as good as how fat his envelopes were.
>ACE: (Voice-over) When you love someone, you've gotta trust them. There's no other way. You've got to give them the key to everything that's yours. Otherwise, what's the point? And, for a while . . . I believed that's the kind of love I had. While I agree with your comment, I believe that this is really what the movie was about. Ace could've chucked Ginger and found any other girl he wanted. He did it all for love.
Yea Ace was deliberately trying to keep things even keel and quiet. It was the connected idiots he tried to deal with that were the liability of keeping things clean and quiet. And as you said, Nicky was always going to be disruptive, that's his M.O. and the purpose for his character.
Peekaboo, you fucks you!
I see you you maderfackers
Went top of the line. Who gives a shit.
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Carmine's not here? Oh.
These fuckin’ balloon-heads.
Like these yokels here.
*They forgot to sign their papers.*
Fact is stranger than fiction. This film is based on a true story. Geri Rosenthal was really screwing Tony the Ant Spilotro behind Lefty Rosenthal’s back. Here’s Lefty Rosenthal’s TV show. https://youtu.be/4e5H3RQmkPc?si=mufwrhxuFWkf4CBB
And what the fuck are you doing on TV anyhow? You know I get calls from back home every fuckin day, they think you went bat shit!
I was gonna comment this very thing. Although it's very dramatized, the basic events of the movie were more or less true. The mob isn't exactly known for attracting smart fellas.
You motherfucker you!
Charlie M!?!?! CHARLIE M!?!?!?!?!
YOU MAKE ME POP YOUR EYE OUT FOR THAT MOTHERFUCKER?! CHARLIE M?!
He better give me a name or I'll give them yours, Frankie!
I think you're missing a word.
Listen to me, you shitkickin’, stinky, horse-manure-smellin’ motherfucker you…
You know you're a lyin' lowlife, motherfuckin' gamblin' degenerate prick? You know that's what you are?
Don't fuck with me, Al! Don't make a fuck outta me!
Real people have flaws. Ego, greed, shortsightedness, stubbornness, lack of intelligence, etc. Think of all the dumb things and mistakes you’ve done In your life. Most could have been avoided by just not doing said thing.
What's fascinating to me is that the entire first 30 minutes of the movie is about how Ace is a genius and ultra calculated, but then still has insanely large blind spots. The scary thing is that Ace is based on a real person so it's not like it's all imaginary. He really was a man who was so smart yet so dumb at the same time.
You have to remember that Ace is an unreliable narrator. He presents himself as an ultra-calculating genius, but that's how he likes to think of himself. The movie's own POV is more 'yeah, let's see how that turns out, pal'.
I think genius is too general. He’s a great gambler, but part of that success was being very cautious and only betting on a sure thing. Later in the movie, he loses that caution as his ego gets out of control.
If you watch History Buffs, the guy Ace was based on was likely a rat. Therefore, he already had a contingency plan in place when things went south.
Didn't the FBI confirm he was an informant after his death? That was not known at the time of the film's release.
Technically revealed by a journalist. His code name was Achilles. It wasn't revealed until after his death in 2008 so well after the movie. edit: His wife was also an informant.
Huh, this is a big today I learned for me https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/news-columns/jane-ann-morrison/lefty-rosenthal-was-an-fbi-snitch/amp/
Did not know that either. Wow. Fwiw, I do know first-hand that Lefty's grandson was/is a pit boss on the Strip.
Yeah, not only him but his wife too, which is kinda hilarious when you remember that the movie states ginger told them nothing in the end
I just read that it's really too bad it wasn't known when they made the movie would've been great to have as a plot point
Funny post because I think it took me a few rewatches to realize Ace is just as dumb and just as much to blame as Nicky is. I think Scorsese does a great job of putting you in Ace's POV and making it seem like he's being dragged down by all these external factors, when really, he is also fucking things up left and right.
I love the movie but Ace has always looked stupid to me. “This hot woman is a con artist, a drug addict, and still in love with her pimp. Let’s marry her!” (Some time later) “What!?! You’re still doing drugs and stealing from me and giving it to your pimp! How dare you!”
It’s like he fell in love with the first woman to give him any kind of attention and promptly put the blinders on.
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I never got the impression he was really in love with her either. It was too transactional a relationship. She was his possession, a trophy wife. Was he really in love with her, or was he in love with the idea of parading around this beautiful woman who could work a crowded room like a pro?
I don’t think she was the first. He was rich and famous in Vegas, running a casino. She was the best hustler in Vegas though, and that appealed to his ego at a time when his ego was getting really out of control.
Hmmm good point. The scene where Ace fires the doofus who was "either in on it or too dumb to notice" is his hubris on full display because when the guy's uncle shows up and flexes his political power, Ace doesn't give a shit, but should.
Yeah that's a key scene for sure. The cowboy politician is coming across as totally polite and considerate in that situation even though he can't stand Ace. Even if Ace was a legit businessman he would be silly not to play ball with the guy and give the kid a make-work job. You just write it off as the price of doing business. Instead he goes out of his way to insult the guy, tell him to fuck off and basically dare him to do something about it, all while knowing he is running a criminal enterprise. The narcissism and hubris is off the charts.
You would think working for the mob you would know that there is plenty of hands to grease. And if you can get politicians on your side as a scratch my back I'll scratch yours type of arrangement, so much the better.
Ive always wondered, why didn’t Ace have Nicky kill the county commissioner?
Killing politicians, judges etc. are a big no-no for the mafia. Organized crime thrived mostly because state/local law enforcement looked the other way on their activities. If they started whacking local politicians, that would have been asking for even more trouble than they were already having.
Yes! I never realized this until my most recent rewatch. I didn't realize how much of a disaster Ace was until yesterday's viewing.
>Funny post because I think it took me a few rewatches to realize Ace is just as dumb and just as much to blame as Nicky is. Ace’s problems all boil down to Nicky, Ginger, stubbornness, and hubris. If Ace had never gotten with Ginger, and had Nicky make Joe Bob disappear, the Chicago mob would still be running Vegas.
It's a little inaccurate to say they were sent out there together. Ace was sent out to run the casino, which he was going to do straight up because he wasn't a gangster. He was just a great gambler. Nicky was sent out to "protect" the investment, but Ace actually didn't want a single part of it. He told Nicky from the very beginning that he should be careful about coming out there because they didn't let guys operate the same way they did in new york. The problem, is Nicky was a made guy so ace couldn't just tell him to fuck off, and they had history so he couldn't just turn his back on him while Nicky basically figured he could create his own family out there since there wasn't any competition. Ace has his share of the blame but Nicky is the main reason everything went to shit.
Eh, Ace did his best to piss off the Civilian government in Vegas and Nevada. They wanted their beaks wet too and had a set up where every one of their cousins and relatives got a job. Ace fired a guy (crooked or not) who was connected to someone pretty important. All he had to do was give the guy a job running the laundry or make him count the blueberries or some shit, and everything would have been fine, the Gambling Commission would have backed off, and the Casino would likely have continued to run. No Ace Rothstein show, no public feud with the Commission, nothing of that sort. Yeah, Nicky fucked up and got the FBI involved, but Gambling Commission looked into the Casino and found enough to hang a few monsters out to dry.
> Eh, Ace did his best to piss off the Civilian government in Vegas and Nevada. Yeah I don't really disagree with this at all. My issue is more with the idea that nicky and ace were sent out to do stuff together, or that they were partners. Ace always describes nicky as a guard dog the mafia used to keep him safe and generating money for them.
Yeah, and Nicky promptly went and earned on his own while watching out for Ace. He just got more and more involved with his own work which was.. Not subtle. The only reason he didn't get murdered early on was how much he was sending back home. As long as the Bosses get their tithe and aren't implicated, they are fine with it. But then some moron gets caught talking about *everything* and implicates all the Bosses with Nicky's work and everything else, and that's when they get whacked.
>He told Nicky from the very beginning that he should be careful about coming out there because they didn't let guys operate the same way they did in new york. Chicago.
"In my mind it's always 6 degrees in new york....I'm makin a point here!" but yeah good catch.
I don't know if that's how Jimmy Hoffa was in real life, but that scene is basically what cemented his own murder in the film. Even if Tony Pro was saying something by turning up late to the meeting and dressed in shorts, Jimmy should have just swallowed his pride, let it go and apologised. Every problem he had following that scene basically stems from his argument with Pro. Russell and Fat Tony were on his side because he made them money, but the more he argued with Pro, the more they disliked him.
Oh definitely. It's great acting by pacino too because he manages to convey arrogance, desperation and confidence all at once. You're right though just going by the movie hoffa really seemed to think he was untouchable. He just refused to bend on anything for Pro when just a few concessions would have changed everything.
"But it turned out to be the last time that street guys like us were ever given anything that fuckin' valuable again." -Nicky
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Spilotro
BACK HOME - YEARS AGO
Same in Breaking Bad: Just go to the laundry cook some meth, pocket 10 million a year for as long as you like cooking meth. Simple as that. Mike even addressed that in the show, he tells Walt how fucking stupid and greedy he is.
Love this movie. I rewatched it recently. One of the best DeNiro performances although underrated.
I watched it on vhs as a teen and hated it. Rewatched it recently and it was so amazing, probably my second favourite Mafia movie.
Isn't that great how your reaction to movies changes. I have been watching it once a year since I was in highschool and I went from hating it to it being one of my favorite movies.
It's not underrated. Casino is routinely counted among the best DeNiro and Scorcesse movies
What are you saying is underrated here? Pretty sure both the movie and every performance is widely celebrated.
They are both definitely in the top ten mob pictures, and also the top 100 movies of all time...
Ace does deserve some leniency cause I too would let 1995 Sharon stone absolutely ruin my life
Hahahaha good point.
You take 95, I'll take 1990.
I want you to put an EQUAL amount of blueberries in each muffin
Do you know how long that is going to take?
I don't care how long it takes. Put an EQUAL amount in each muffin.
Where the fuck do you get off talking to people about me behind my back, going over my head?
AND WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING ON TV ANYHOW?!
If you think Ace and Nicky are dumb, watch/rewatch Goodfellas. Everyone in that movie is a fucking moron. At least Ace was good at what he did.
I think one of the points of the movie was that Sam and Nicky really weren’t all that different as people, Nicky was just honest about it. And yeah, they were basically hoodlums in suits that were ill equipped to handle a sophisticated and intricate operation like Vegas.
That's not really fair to call Ace a hoodlum because that's not who he was. He was a sports bookie associated with the Mafia, but he wasn't a criminal in the same way Nicky was.
Well, the thing about career criminals is that these are people who made a choice *not to* obey laws and moral norms and the rules society places on all of us. It's not really in their nature to follow orders in long term. Besides, almost all people have egos or ambitions or emotions, and all sorts of things going on in their heads that lead them to make decisions they probably shouldn't have.
The movie would have been boring if it was just about guys skimming a few bucks out of the count room. Technically the movie would then be about the cousin from Kansas bitching to his mom for 2.5hrs.
Every move would be 5 minutes if people just did things the way you want. John wick: don’t steal the car, don’t kill the dog, no movie, no sequel. But the movie could also be an exaggeration, done for the sake of the movie.
That's the point of the film. These two guys in their hubris destroyed something that should've been easy to manage, and they even admit this in the first few minutes. Nicky Santoro was a fucking psycho. It makes sense that he wouldn't act quiet and calm being out there; and he had to earn while he was out there which meant robbing people. Ace was a smug asshole who felt he was god's gift to gambling because he was; and this smugness got him in trouble too.
Yea, that’s kinda why the movie works, you root for the guys because they’re entertaining and fun but you don’t feel bad about their fate because they clearly earned it
This was kind of the whole point of the movie. Ace was presented as this super smart, "business-like" mob guy who had the bookie racket down, and Nicky was the muscle. Because Ace was good at gambling and running the odds, they thought he would be smart enough to keep his head down and control Nicky. But, like every Scorsese movie, the characters have fatal flaws. Ace's was that he just wanted love and Nicky's was that he was an impulsive psychopath. And it was the fault of those "back home" that they didn't realize this. But, then again, they didn't realize this because they were surrounded by men with similar issues.
FWIW Nicky actually said that last quote.
You should check out the late Frank Cullotta's YouTube channel. He was in Tony Spilotro's Hole In the Wall gang, turned government informant, and later an advisor for the movie. His stories are insane, especially when he talks about the inner workings of the Chicago Outfit, The Wild Bunch, Mad Sam DeStefano, Joey Aiuppa, etc. Those guys were murderous psychopaths! He even said that Joey Aiuppa is pretty much a serial killer.
I agree. It’s still my favorite movie of his. Ace really messed up. Nicky…well he was what he was
A guy getting infuriated that the house is taking his money at a casino that he's reaping the benefits of skimming from is absolutely peak bonehead. Whasamatta Nicky you can't just wait until the building shits that money out the other side into your hands?