Why was Ace Still breathing.

Yer its been a while since ive blogged. No real excuse to be honest, just felt like I had nothing big or clever to say. The silence has to be broken now though, feel like I want to get back onto my soap box and let people hear what it is that im saying.

Bought the film Casino yesterday for £4 from HMV (they got a wicked sale on at the mo, so anyone lookin for a good night in with the telly should go and have a mooch for some cheap deals). Now almost everyones probably got a favourtie gangster film, Goodfellas, any one of the Godfather series, Scarface etc. But it seems to me like the only thing that ive ever learned from any of the afformentioned titles is that I never wanna be a gangster. Take Tony Montanna for example. Fair enough he came to florida as an immigrant with nothing but his battle scars, and he made his way up the crime ladder by fighting tooth and nail. Even got himself a nice woman on the way. Unfortunately for him though, he saw his mates arm get cut off wit a flippin chainsaw, he saw his sister get killed and in the end of it all he took about 50 shotgun blasts to his spine whilst having a drug induced ego trip.

Id say that this was the general rule of thumb for most if not all gangster films. Things start off nice, kill a few of your enemies, get your name up, get a nice wife, wife turns into a bitch, people get jealous, you fuck up and then die.

From this:






















To this...





















...in the space of 170 mins. I dont look up to Tony Montana. Hes not sick. He turned out to be a power crazy coke head.

After watching Casino I realised that not all Gangster films necessarily have to have such an unhappy ending. Meet Sam "Ace" Rothstein, in my opinion the baddest character Scorsese has ever came up with.


















Not gonna give a synopsis of the film, if you havent seen it you should go and get it, sit down, put it on, get a pen and paper and take notes. Now clearly im no gangster. Far from it, im just a regular, everday normal guy. But i reckon if all us boys were a bit more like Ace we would be a step closer to being men.

Firslty, Ace was a clever guy. He knew when he moved to Vegas that the old street style of doing crime had to be done away with, cause he knew that that shit would'nt fly in his new surroundings. He made a concious choice to put away behaviours that he knew would only lead to him ending up in alota shit.

Unlike Nikky...




















''who thought that the Vegas was the wildwest''
Basically, as a man, you need to know how to behave. Dont be acting like a rebellous adolescent who thinks the only way to get respect is to disrespect everything and everyone, when really you should be acting like a man of integrity who knows when its necessary to follow orders and realises that it takes a bigger man to handle his responsibilties properly than it does to bitch and complain every time someone asks you to do something that you shoud already be doing.

Throughout the film Ace encounters a few situations where, as the boss and as a man he had to lay the law down; even though it meant that there were gonna be consequences.



















He wasnt afraid to say what had to be said, and in the end it did cost him. But he knew that he had still had his integrity, and no one could call him out for not speakin up about things that other poeple werent going to. So as a man, you gotta speak up, even if it means your gonna have to pay for it.

Ace wasnt the touhgest guy in the film, actually he did'nt throw a punch throughout the whole film. But nevetheless people got hurt when he wanted them too.



















And this is a great lesson for small guys like myself. Ace wasnt the biggest guy in the room, but he stil managed to cause plenty of damage to his enemies.

With regards to the title of the blog, not to spoil the plot for anyone, but everything goes to shit in vegas, mainly because people wernt doin there job properly. In the end, alot of poeple loose their lifes, except Ace. I reckon that the only reason he was still breathin at the end of the film is cause he knew what he was the only guy who didnt make the kinda mistakes that the best of us would do. He showed respect to the guys who needed it, he didnt get to greedy, he earned his own respect, he made the mistake of fallin in love wit a woman who didnt return the favour, but he rectified that problem with patience. All the other guys in the film who ended up buried had dickhead best mates who in the end stabbed them in the back, or should i say cracked their skulls open with baseball bats. Yer thats really important too, make sure you always have a good guy who you can trust at all times, just like Billy Sherbert, Ace's right hand man:






















I reckon Ace survived cause he wasnt he loudest guy in the room, but people heard him when he spoke, cause he wasnt the cleverest guy around, but he had his head screwed onto his shoulders and cause he knew how to handle his resposibilities.

Sorry for how 'wordy' this post turned out to be. Wanted to say more bout this film but ma belly wants a sandwhich and ive written too much already. I kno alot of you would rather look at some billion megapixel action shots taken from someones SLR10048209 or watch some youtube videos of some dub step tune than actually have to sit there and read shit. To be honest i would rather look at that too. But a little bit of reading never hurt anyone.