21: Movie Review

Winner winner chicken dinner. That's what you get when you have 2 cards that equal to the number 21 in a game of blackjack. But this movie is more than just having a chicken for dinner. It's about how to turn blackjack into a money printing machine. But make no mistake, the term of card counting-which heavily applies in this movie- has actually been seen before in the movie Rain Man. Go find that out.

Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) is a genius. 4 pointer all the way for us Malaysians. But for his standards, he's way beyond that. While wanting to write an essay in MIT for his Robinson Scholarship to get him into Harvard Med School, he found out that his lecturer, Mickey Rosa (Kevin Spacey) has ways to show him that blackjack might be even better then a 300k scholarship. Joining a team of bright students he learned card counting, the best startegy to play blackjack. From there, every single nerd's dream became true, at least, for a while. And yesm this is based on true events.

Jim portrayed correctly as a nerdy guy, and I was amazed at the character development actually. Yet, the latter moments in the movie i felt it was off. Kevin Spacey did strongly here, and I liked it very much. Overall, I believe that the only weak point here is audiences would've wanted to sample more of card counting. It was only 1 scene that showed how the system worked. Certain parts of the movie didn't really felt was neessary, so it was more of a filler to a 2 hour long movie. And I should also say that the script was nothing to boast about. It's too simple and felt queesy.

If you were looking for a gambling movie, this wouldn't be it. Best to keep watching that old God of Gamblers (the 1st one and the prequel mind you) and Casino Royale for much better depiction. But if you're interested in card counting, give this movie a shot. You'll come out the hall wanting to win big money then.