Movie Review: 21
“21 is the fact-based story about six MIT students who were trained to become experts in card counting and subsequently took Vegas casinos for millions in winnings.” – imdb.com
If you’re looking for Ocean’s 11 without the glam and organized by college students then maybe you should think about watching 21. Check out the trailer: here.
Jim Sturgess stars as Ben Campbell, a mathematical genius. He’s finishing his year at MIT and looking for money to pay for Harvard Medical School. Long story short, he ends up in Las Vegas playing cards to get the money. The most interesting part about this film is that it’s true.
For the most part, I would recommend the movie. The way it was directed made it fast-paced, not allowing the audience to fall asleep. Although, there were a few loop holes and the “sex” scene that was inserted was quite frankly… a bit ridiculous. Aside from that I really think that this is an important role for Kevin Spacey. It’s been a while and I’m glad to see him do this character.
Kevin Spacey plays the professor (Mickey Rosa) that groups these students together to create a “team” that pays weekly visits to Vegas in order to play the game. What is most complex about this character is the way that he starts as a protagonist and converts into an antagonist. The good guy that we were all cheering for at the beginning of the film is the one that we hate in the second half.
I would say that Sturgess and Spacey do the best job with their acting abilities. And although Kate Bosworth is also mentionable… in my opinion she looks too old and acts too old for the part.
If you find the trailer intriguing then I suggest watching the film. It was entertaining and kept me attentive the entire time. But just as a warning… this film is better than the trailer puts it out to be. I was not expecting it to be as watchable as it was.
Filed under: Apple, Entertainment, Movie Review | 3 Comments
Tags: Sean Paul Cormier, Jacob Pitts, Jessi Shuttleworth, Aaron Yoo, Henry Fleming Wood, Christopher Tranchina, Kevin Spacey, Jim Sturgess, Kal Thompson, Laurence Fishburne, Josh Gad, Rebecca Marshall, Jack McGee, Liza Lapira, Christopher Michael Holley, Sam Golzari, Spencer Garrett, Patrick Canty, Shaun Aponik, Kate Bosworth, Eric Bruno Borgman, Fethi Bendida, Peter Steinfeld, Robert Luketic, Allan Loeb, Ben Mezrich, 21, Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T.
If this film is good, what about the real events that inspired it? Check out the BBC documentary about Thorpe and blackjack card counting called “Making millions the easy way”
I like the way the movie tells the story. It tells in a serious way, just like it should be.
I agree with you that you wrote Sturgess and Spacey do the best job with their acting abilities. As I can remembered, this is my first time seeing Sturgess movie. But I can say, Jim Sturgess is a rising star just like Shia LaBeouf and Heath Ledger. The last name is gone before trully rising.
It’s a kind of film that burned our sprit to chase our dreams. But You Can’t Always Get What You Want.
That’s the fact.