Imagine that you knew a way to consistently beat the house at a gambling establishment. That is the premise of 21. It is loosely based on the MIT Blackjack Team [1] which operated during the 1980s and 1990s. They developed techniques for winning at blackjack and used their skills all over the country. The movie is about Ben, a brilliant pre-med student at MIT who doesn't think he'll be able to pay for Harvard Medical school. He's recruited into a blackjack team that travels to Las Vegas and regularly wins hundreds of thousands of dollars. The teacher who organized the team tells Ben that card counting isn't illegal, yet a major subplot of the movie involves their efforts to avoid detection by casino security.[2]
My verdict: The movie was definitely entertaining, though the major plot twist was (I thought) rather predictable. Of greater concern: Ben doesn't learn anything meaningful from his experiences. He spends the whole movie with a sense of entitlement and when it's over, that hasn't changed.[3] Thus, while this movie is okay to watch once, I won't care to watch it again. There are simply better movies out there to watch.
Notes:
[1] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT Blackjack Team.
[2] They're also limited to the casinos which haven't adopted biometric software which recognizes card counters.
[3] Not that this is surprising in a movie about gambling.
Notes:
[1] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT Blackjack Team.
[2] They're also limited to the casinos which haven't adopted biometric software which recognizes card counters.
[3] Not that this is surprising in a movie about gambling.
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