Romina’s Blog

“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.