Great cast, terrible story. Great production, terrible directing. The result, boring, boring, boring. And factually incorrect because lansky didn't pioneer anything. But thanks to the producers of this ilk, the myth carries on. Did he build a large criminal enterprise; yes. But crediting him with the gambling industry today makes about as much sense as saying bill gates invented software. It's just incredibly amazing that people think casinos and gambling started with las vegas, which by the way wasn't built in las vegas. Yep, the flamingo, trop, sands, stardust were actually built outside the city limits so the mob didn't have to deal with city officials. The part about bribing city officials in the film is just nonsense. The 'strip' as it's known is outside city limits. Google it. The city today only occupies about 1/4th the metro area. But google it, reno was larger than vegas at the end of the war. Reno was hugely more well known before the war and it already had casinos and a tourism industry that dwarfed las vegas. Slightly bigger population but considerably larger number of tourists, and I'm including lake tahoe as well. But, the mob couldn't build in reno without the approval of the city, the casino owners and other shadowy bigwigs. The sign in reno, "biggest little city in the world", still there, basically was a message to the mob, don't come here. There's actually a funny scene in godfather I that's based on this. So why didn't Reno become the world's entertainment city? It's partly because those who controlled reno never wanted the attention and growth; again, the sign. Vegas is a marketing mirage created by a loose confederation of self-interested business interests with one goal. Bring as many punters to the place as you can. That's why today 3/4ths of nevadans live in the vegas metro area despite the hot climate in the summer, 4 inches of rainfall every year, vegas throat and many other things. And 'marketing' is why vegas has grown from 250k back in the 70s to over 2 million today. A growth of 1000%. If the US grew at the same rate, there would be 2 billion people living in the US today. And where did lansky and seigel come from? The gambling industry in california. Everything about early las vegas is based on the gambling industry in california, particularly southern california. The payoffs, bribes, organized crime, murders, tax evasion, was all part of that industry. Gambling, although mostly illegal, was everwhere, from san francisco to san diego. Horses and off track betting, illegal casinos, boats, you name it but there was a tremendous amount of corruption and competition, and scandal, and publicity. The history of gambling in california has all been forgotten in the mirage of vegas. Nobody remembers anymore that the mob moved to vegas to get away from california, the corruption, publicity and all and to an area they could control. The mob, howard hughes, tony hseih all came to vegas because vegas had one thing they couldn't get anywhere else: control. If california had legalized gambling back in the 30s, and institutionalized the industry and got rid of the corruption, vegas would be a town most people never heard of, like pahrump. What does that have to do with this film? Read the end credits. Basically they give lansky credit for building las vegas and pioneering gambling which is about as ridiculous as the rest of this film. But if you believe that then you probably believe lance armstrong won 7 tour de france races. #livestrong #vegasstrong But, that's history for you. Nobody 'altavista's something. No, it's google this, and google that. Nobody says xerox anymore, however the brits still say 'hoover'.
Review of Lansky
