“21” Theatrical Poster
After too many movies that shows the glitz and glamour of the “casino” life, and by the end of it all, you kept finding yourself googling “Top 10 casino strategies in the world” – out of curiosity, and perhaps in the hopes of learning a thing or two. But is the thrill of gambling really about winning? Everybody knows that people play for the rush and that the odds are predetermined to favor the house. The ratio of bettors quite frankly overthrows winners, yet don’t we all just keep playing?
There was an article a couple of years ago about a group of students in the 1990s, the “MIT Blackjack Team”. Apparently, these “kids” formulated a model that used simple math, giving a player an edge over the blackjack dealer. The article was so compelling and got me thinking how things could be just as simple as counting sheep in your head. It made me wonder if this “system” would still work anywhere these days, say, at online casino new zealand guide there are a lot of tips for leaning this strategies.
So anyway, it goes without saying that I was excited to see “21” – a movie “inspired by” the real-life story of the same M.I.T. students who made millions in Las Vegas. “21,” pretty much tells how to follow all the “rules” and end up losing anyway. They clearly tried to fit such a detailed story into a movie template and ended up killing the excitement. It turned out to be purely generic which was such a disappointment.
So, here was how it went:
Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) M.I.T. undergrad is a smart guy from Boston. He badly needs a $300,000 scholarship to get into Harvard. His nerdiness did not escape Professor Rosa’s (Kevin Spacey) penchant for math geniuses and ends up inviting him to join a secret group of card-counters who plans on flying to Vegas on weekends to make a forture. Ben resists in the beginning, even after a beautiful blond girl (Kate Bosworth) attempts to woo him. Then again, he really needs the money, so he decides to give it a try — but only until he gathers enough for his tuition.
This was followed by a badly sequenced montage that had me reaching for a nonexistent rewind button just to catch on.
So they all go to Vegas, wins, more montage, until their antics catches the eye of a casino security guy named Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne) who’s about to lose his business to some new biometric facerecognition software. What you need to remember here, is that if casinos caught you counting cards, you just might get a good beating down the basement. But don’t worry, you’ll be released afterwards!
Ben gets sucked in to this “too good to be true” life as he limply narrated in voiceover. He finds himself by blondie’s door with a sappy realization that he’s lost everything, but would like one last chance at getting back on the saddle. He makes up with blondie and the professor. They gather the team and reunites for one last score. Turns out, Williams has been hunting Rosa down for years and finally saw a chance at cornering him with the help of Ben. The End.
Overall, the movie could have been done better and written with a better plot. The casting was decent; even the wigs that Bosworth had to wear had more appeal than the story as a whole.
