MovieZen Blog

21: Card Counting 101

I recently watched 21 and I had thought it would be as exciting as heist movies such as the Ocean’s series. However, I was sadly disappointed.

21 stars Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, Laurence Fishburne, and others in this true to life inspired story of MIT students trained in card counting to win big money at Black Jack tables in Vegas. The premise of the story is promising. The fact that this movie is about casino, the high life, cheating and getting away with it are the things that attracted me to watch this movie. I thought that this movie would be similar to the Ocean’s series in which the movie would portray how they'd pull off the gig.

However, the movie is more of a narration as to how card counting people do it and what happens to them if they do it. It’s actually a goody goody movie wherein cheating is punished and you should always do good. Not exactly what I was hoping for. 

Anyway, it was a tad bit boring for me and not really something I would like to watch again. One good thing that came out of the experience is that I was intrigued about card counting and wanted to look it up more. I wanted to know how they do it and I am currently reading about it online. Of course, I wouldn’t have a chance on using it (if I actually learned how to!) but still it would be interesting to know how they do it. The movie itself basically tells you how they do it but it is not really clear. Actually, this was what made the movie boring and dragging. I don’t think they presented it in an exciting way.

If you haven’t watched the movie, you should first ask yourself if you are interested in Black Jack and gambling. If you are, then you might like the movie. But if you don’t like gambling and cheating movies, then you better watch this if there is absolutely no other movie to watch anymore.

st3ph_17
Movie Rants and Raves

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How's Your 21 Game?

How many of us have played a blackjack game in our lives? How many of us have won? Of course everyone has lost more than once! How many of us have beaten the system at blackjack and walked away with lots of cash from the casino? 

Well Kevin Spacey stars in 21 and this movie is about that world. I have seen lots of movies concentrated on casinos and the way they affect people's lives. This story, based on real life, is about a gang of MIT students, which supposedly have beaten the casinos at blackjack by counting cards. 

Kevin Spacey is the math teacher that trains and leads the team of card counters. Every weekend they are in and out of Las Vegas with more and more money. For this movie to succeed there needs to be some balance. We can't have a bunch of kids, however smart they might be, go through the entire movie towards a happy ending. Therefore Laurence Fishburne plays the guy any casino would hire to spot the cheats and the cheaters. His job is to make sure they don't return on his territory again. 

So we have a movie then. 21 will let you dream. 21 will make you believe you could do that too and win some money. 21 will show you twists and turns towards of course a happy ending. 

What 21 isn't? An Oscar winner. We have good acting, remarkable lead and supporting roles, but overall is a predictable movie. Although it is somewhat based on real life events, the story doesn't have that certain je-ne-sais-qois it needs to become a huge hit and walk away with lots of prizes. 

But it's a definitely must see. So what do you think of it?

Chris
A Million Readers...

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Shuffling “21”

Director Robert Luketic’s “21” broke the box office bank last weekend with a No. 1 buy-in topping the $24-million mark. Regardless, producer/star Kevin Spacey sounded as if he had a just a bit too much of “Sin City” surroundings during a recent interview.

“We were here for about a month or more, which is a long time to be in a place that's sort of just encourages gambling, drinking and strip clubs,” the soon-to-be-50 star explained a day after his gambling flick premiered at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas. “So, I did a lot of things that were off the strip and tried to keep myself occupied in other ways because, when you're shooting a movie, you just can't live the life -- or at least I didn't -- while I was here shooting. I just can't do it.”

Meanwhile, young co-star Jim Sturgess was just happy to be in the film at all. “My audition tape was one of the worst in recent history,” he told us during his Vegas sit-down time. “I don’t even know what happened. I was told that (director Luketic) wanted an audition tape and I was stuck in rural England with “The Other Boleyn Girl.” I found someone with a camcorder and I auditioned by holding the camcorder and shooting myself with it and I thought, ‘Well that is the end of that.’

“Then Kevin said he would like to meet with me in London and we had breakfast and talked about it and
it went from there.”

And Kate Bosworth? Well, playing the lead fem in a group of MIT students who took Vegas for millions in a real-life card-counting scheme did have his moments.

“I loved some of the clothes we wore during our disguise sequences,” said the blonde cutie. “I had a lot of fun as the Southern Belle. I thought that she was just funny for me. I think my favorite one might be the last one though, the sort of (black-haired) Brook with the glasses. Honestly, my hair will just never do that. So it's fun to be able to pop on a wig.”

Good deal.

John Urbancich
Cleveland Sun -- Intermission

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The MIT Scandal Goes Hollywood

The 2003 best seller, Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich, topped the New York Times bestseller list for fifty-seven weeks. It’s no wonder that Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey wanted to produce a film based on the non-fiction story so badly. Columbia Pictures will release 21 later this week, a film that covers the story of six MIT students that took the Vegas casinos by storm to win millions in the 1990’s. When I see the previews on television though, I wonder how much Hollywood has tainted the story – I mean, I certainly didn’t expect brainy MIT students to be as good looking as Jim Sturgess and Kate Bosworth!            

With this film, viewers worldwide will embrace the notion that a bunch of college kids learned the methods to counting cards to beat the game of blackjack. Rest assured, the public will soon leave the theater wanting to learn how to count cards, and will be buying their next flight to Vegas. Everyone except the actual MIT students that were involved in the 1990’s ploy, that is…now that the team has been exposed on the silver screen, they can be assured that they won’t be able to step foot in any casinos soon.

Christina Morgan
UPBEAT Entertainment News Syndicate

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