In 1979 a group of students from MIT attended a course entitled ‘How to Gamble if You Must’. Bright as they were, they spotted an opportunity to employ card counting techniques in blackjack. With mixed results initially, they met a mentor with a winning record, having previously managed a team of profitable card counters. After ironing out the problems with their system the MIT blackjack team went on to terrorise American casinos, winning up to $350,000 a year.
Based on these events, and the book ‘Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions’ comes the film ‘21’ starring Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey and Kate Bosworth. The screenplay, whilst based on the true life events, has had a significant amount of fiction added to turn what would have been a documentary into an interesting thriller.
We start out with Ben Campbell (Sturgess), a star MIT student, particularly gifted in mathematics, applying for a prestigious scholarship to Harvard Medical School. Without the scholarship, tuition and living fees would add up to a staggering $300,000! The only problem is that Ben has spent all his life studying and not living. With a pile of other applicants, all with similar stellar CVs, the interviewer wants Ben to write an essay on what life events make him different. With no answer to the question, Ben slips back into his existence as a ‘nerd amongst nerds’ back at MIT. He lacks the balls to put himself forward, in both his professional life in writing the essay and his personal life in asking out the girl he’s admired from afar.
In one of his courses Ben manages to impress the Professor, Micky Rosa (Spacey) with his analytical mind. Unbeknownst to him Prof. Rosa runs a secret blackjack club made up of the best students on campus. All have been trained in card counting and play as a team, with their own secret language and gestures. With a spot left on the group, Micky sees a bright future for Ben in Las Vegas and tries to induct Ben into the group. Instead of seeing this as an opportunity to live a little, his cautious nature wins through and he declines the offer, favoring his safe, steady $8 an hour job at a local menswear store. When the object of his affection (and member of the blackjack team), Jill Taylor (Bosworth), pays him a visit at said store and tries to persuade him to join the team, Ben starts to waiver and eventually signs up. After attending the requisite training to turn him form academic genius to card counting rain man, Ben passes all the tests with flying colours. He’s now ready to hit Vegas and earn the $300,000 he needs for medical school. It’s here that the meat of the film starts, as Ben’s character starts an interesting journey that will see highs and lows, riches and strife as the team try to stay one step ahead of the casino security.
The screenwriters have taken what was already an interesting story and added elements of romance, danger and revenge to make a nice little thriller. The acting is top notch by the main cast. This is the first I’ve seen of Jim Sturgess, and he puts in an excellent turn as Ben who’s character changes a huge amount as he goes from shy nerd to an arrogant, cocky Vegas high roller. Kate Bosworth plays quite an understated character, but does so very well. There’s believable chemistry between her character and Ben, but their developing romance is only a side story to add a bit of feel good ‘the nerd gets the hot girl’ that all of us nerds like to see. Kevin Spacey, as usual, gives an excellent performance as the mentor to the group. One minute the encouraging parent, the next the angry business partner, he gives the role an edge, he’s your pal, but at the same time is someone you don’t want to cross. Laurence Fishburne also pops up in a relatively small role, as the casino security contractor. He believes in old school tactics for dealing with card counters, locking them in a room, tying them to a chair and hitting them repeatedly!
This isn’t a thriller that’ll keep you on the edge of your seat for two hours, the threat level to the main protagonists is never that high to have you genuinely concerned for their lives, but it is an interesting story told and acted well. I watched this on a 37” LCD upcsaled through a Toshiba HD-EP35 and the picture quality was excellent. There’s a sharp contrast in colour pallet between the Vegas and Boston sequences, Boston seeming drag and dreary compared to the bright and vibrant Vegas lights, but I daresay this was intentional. Sound was good, but was only really of note during the Vegas sequences again.
I highly recommend this film, I thoroughly enjoyed it as a change in pace from the high octane Hollywood films I’ve been watching recently. Good story, good acting, good setting, ‘nuff said!