Live Life Team
Back in the 1990s, Joe Pesci was part of an elite club known as Scorsese’s actors. He even won an Oscar for a supporting role in “Goodfellas” playing a psychotic gangster. So it’s no wonder Scorsese cast Pesci in his next gangster pic, “Casino”.
Pesci again played a gangster but received none of the same accolades. What I can’t figure out is – what’s the difference, In “Goodfellas”, he stabbed a guy with a butcher knife while in “Casino” he used a pen.
The main difference I see, regarding range of emotion, is that his character in “Goodfellas”, Tommy De Vito, is more dynamic. After he beats another gangster to death in a bar, he sobs to his friend who owns the bar, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to mess your floor.” The editing of this scene is startling. As soon as the words come out of his mouth, we’ve jumped to the next scene, leaving the viewer wondering, “Did that just happen,”
Pesci’s character in “Casino”, Nickie Santoro, is much more solid. If anything, he’s even more of a torturous maniac. He never wavers in his lunacy. He narrates a scene where he tortures a man for two days just to prove a point. It’s far more chilling and even seems to make De Vito more palatable. Regardless of their differences, they were both based on real men who were executed. And if I ever see Pesci walking down the street, I’m staying out of his way.
