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Originally Posted by !@#$%!
in gangster films, the how great/unraveling goes at least way back to the first scarface.
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Sure but in those earlier film, the unravelling comes as the result of an individual psychosis or as a direct result of their gangster activities. What Scorsese emphasises is people unravelling due to the lifestyles that come with that activity. Not that the lifestyle wasn't a factor in those earlier films, but it took Scorsese to really put it at the centre of the genre, starting with Mean Streets (to a degree), perfected by Goodfellas/Casino and perhaps taken a little too far with Wolf (Goodfellas with calculators),
or in other words, I agree with Severian.
I also think people are too harsh on Casino. It may be a little too much like Goodfellas for its own good, but it's still head and shoulders above 90% of movies in that vein. Really, the worst anyone can say about Casino is it isn't quite as good as Goodfellas. But given so few films are, it's not a big deal for me.