The film 21 is inspired by the true story of a group of MIT students that count cards and win a lot of money at black jack. While it didn’t fail to entertain, it was ironically predictable…and I certainly didn’t graduate from MIT.
Jim Sturgess is absolutely lovely to watch and the rest of the crew does a believable job as a group of college students successfully bringing down the house. The camera work was interesting and the excitement of the scenes definitely made me want to jump on a plane to Las Vegas. Unfortunately something about the film falls kind of flat and my only explanation is the “color by numbers” script that left nothing fascinating to the imagination.
I’m not going to ruin a thing for you because you’ll have it all figured out within the first twenty minutes (even though the movie will take another hour and a half). This movie had a lot going on, which sadly didn’t make it more enticing. The main character gets so wrapped up in the gambling that he blows off his best friends. He wins the girl. They make lots of money, only to have it stolen when they double cross the master mind professor. *side note* Who the heck keeps $300,000 above their dorm room bed in a ceiling tile?
Turns out the master mind professor ripped off casinos when he was younger (shocking) and so the college students decide to set him up so the casino security thug (Fishburne) can catch him. All of his dandy life experience in Las Vegas earns him a full scholarship to Harvard Medical School. Oh, and his buddies forgive him when he teaches them how to count cards.
