21

3 comments April 6th, 2008

This past weekend, we saw 21 in theaters. This fun, new movie is based off of the popular novel Bringing Down The House about a successful money scam by a group of intelligent college students. 

Ben Campell, played by Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe anyone?), is the central character in the film. He attends MIT and is virtually a perfect student: 4.0, excellent recommendations, the works. However, his dream is to attend Harvard University Law School and unfortunately money is a major issue. A group of students along with a professor come to Ben and ask them to join their “black-jack group;” they go to Las Vegas every weekend and use their counting cards scheme to win a enormous amount of money. Ben catches on fast and is quickly one of their most profitable players ever. Well, as the plot has it, the story shifts a little…and we won’t spoil the rest.  

This movie was overall very interesting. We tend to like movies that are based off of true stories because of the realistic quality.  Since this movie was only loosely based off the novel, it lost a little of that realistic touch. We felt that they would have been better off trying to stay closer to the actual story, then trying to make it a super intense “Ocean’s 11” type of movie. The real story in itself is so interesting, there was no need to butter it up.  

Overall, we’re not sure it was worth the $9 (yeah we know, $9 is ridiculous!) ticket, but I would definitely put it on the list for rentals. Or better yet, pick up the novel Bringing Down The House and read about the group of gambling MIT students for yourself.