If you’ve been following my blog for a while, then you should know that I’m a bit of a gambler. What can I say, I just love the casino and everything associated with it! Sure, I don’t like it as much as I like kung-fu movies, but honestly, few things match up to an evening at my local casino with friends playing roulette and having a jolly old time. The casino means a lot of things to many different people. Some, such as myself, see it as nothing more than a fun past time, a cute distraction and occasional social activity, while others see it as a way to get rich quickly and downright obsess over them. This split in viewpoints has offered up plenty of opportunities for directors to throw in their own hat into the ring and express their vision, which has given us some very good movies. And while in real life gamblers are mostly worried about stuff like recommended PayPal casinos, in the world of movies the casino represents things that are a bit deeper than that! For example…

Casino (1995) – The ever wonderful Robert De Niro stars in this crime drama about a mob boss who rises through the ranks and eventually sits behind the throne of his own Las Vegas casino, trying to manage it as part of a criminal empire while keeping his personal life in check. Directed by the one and only Martin Scorsese, “Casino” takes cues from some of the best mob movies of all time such as “The Godfather” and “Scarface”, giving the audience a cold, hard look at the criminal underworld, and at one man’s struggle to come out on top of it all while maintaining his sanity. In this movie, the casino is almost like a throne, an object of power to be fought over overtly and covertly, something worth betraying and murdering for. Definitely a pretty cynical look at the gambling empires of the mid-1990s, but not nearly as much as…

Croupier (1998) – The movie that put Clive Owen (of “Sin City” and “Children of Men” fame) on the map, “Croupier” is about as cynical and messed up as a movie can possibly get. In order to support himself while writing his book, a young writer is forced to take a job as a croupier operating a roulette table. Young and idealistic, he gradually begins to descend further into apathy and sadism as he watches the roulette shatter the dreams of the people who come to play. Eventually, the main character’s psyche starts being twisted by the roulette as he starts finding enjoyment in destroying the hopes and ambitions of those that come to play at his table. It’s a truly dark, even downright unsettling look into the human psyche, and one that’s not very easy to watch.

Ocean’s Eleven (2001) – Let’s cap off with something a lot less depressing, shall we? “Ocean’s Eleven” is really a casino movie, per say, but considering the fact that its plot mostly revolves around a casino (or, more specifically, around robbing one), I’d have to say that it counts. A band of misfits led by Danny Ocean (played by George Clooney) have to get together and overcome their differences in order to pull off the heist to end all heists! In this movie, the casino serves as the end goal, the thing that’s going to make everyone rich if their gamble pays off… Which, in fairness, is what a casino is to a lot of people in real life. Maybe that’s why the movie resonated with so many people? Or it could be because it was just damn good. You be the judge!