There’s something ineffable about movies set in casinos, something that has you sitting at the edge of your seat before the title credits roll. Whether ancillary to the plot, or footnote in a wider dramatic tale, there’s a quality with which casino settings imbue a picture that makes us love them all the more. Here, we hope to qualify the reason that so many casino-set movies are in our top 100 list — and what exactly about the setting sparks so much joy.
The Thrills
It may be true that there’s no match for the real thing with casinos – but for many, the glitz and glamor of the pit are sadly a dim possibility. Thankfully, there are ways to bring that excitement into the home; sites like www.skycitycasino.com can enable you to play table and slot games online and from the comfort of your home, meaning you can enjoy games without setting foot in a brick-and-mortar casino. But for the innate thrill, and a uniquely-crafted journey through the odds, there isn’t quite anything like a good casino movie.
Heist movies are the perfect example of this heightened tension and release, as the various leads of Ocean’s Eleven game the house in unexpected and extremely gratifying ways. Bob le Flambeur, the French film noir often attributed with the early New Wave of cinema, as outlined by www.rogerebert.com, is also a breakneck thriller with twists, turns, intrigue and a lucky streak like no other.
Of course, heist movies aren’t the only genre that make the most of the casino setting. The James Bond franchise places the dapper 007 at roulette tables and blackjack games to brilliant effect, accentuating his sheer cool in the face of stacked odds. Casino Royale, Daniel Craig’s first outing as Bond, uses the trope to devastating effect as Bond and Mads Mikkelsen’s Le Chiffre face off over a tense game of poker.
The Feels
The casino backdrop is the perfect foil for the dissection of human emotions, as character-led romance-dramas like the 2003 cult movie The Cooler demonstrate. The high stakes of the casino floor give way to the even higher stakes of a relationship between William H. Macy’s indentured ‘cooler’, and Maria Bello’s enraptured waitress. 1995’s Leaving Las Vegas, as discussed by www.thecrimson.com, is a tragedy of Greek proportions, set against the contrasting lights of the glitzy Las Vegas strip. Even Casablanca, the seminal and endlessly quotable 1942 film noir uses Rick Blaine’s club as the setting for a romantic re-kindling unlike any other: “Play it once, Sam. For old times’ sake.”
The Laughter
For all the seriousness of seminal dramas and thrillers, the casino is ultimately a place of light relief – and movies have certainly not forgotten. Look no further than the runaway success of 2009’s The Hangover, a comedy of errors that’s run-through with the fun and excess of Las Vegas casinos – albeit with a little suspension of disbelief. Rat Race’s mad-cap cross-country escapades begin in a casino, with John Cleese’s larger-than-life tycoon Donald Sinclair.
If ‘casino movie’ was a genre in and of itself, it would be defined by its sheer range. Comedies, tragedies, romances, redemption arcs, and more besides; the casino movie is a window in, a way to participate from home, to feel the highs and lows in an utterly unique and artful way. The casino movie is almost as old as movies themselves, and is hopefully not going anywhere.
