Blackjack Movies: 21
admin | Movies, Review3 Oct 2011
21 is a 2008 film starring Kevin Spacey and Lawrence Fishburne based off the book Bringing Down The House by Ben Mezrich. The story is based on the true events which conspired between an MIT professor and five students he trains to count cards in Las Vegas. The professor is named Micky Rosa, who years earlier had left vegas with a large sum after counting cards. The scam also netted Rosa an enemy, the casino manager Cole Williams played by Fishburne who lost is job for failing to catch Rosa. The star of the team is Ben Campbell, who is intelligent but without the funds to pay for Harvard Medical School. Thus he takes a job with the team to pay the sum of $300,000. Kianna, Fisher, Choi and Jill round out the team. The team has two parts each with its own job: one group counts the cards, but bets low, while another group makes bets when signaled by members of the first group that conditions are ideal for a win. Initially the plan is a success, but it eventually leads to Campbell’s addiction to gambling and the lifestyle it affords him. He plays by emotion rather than the advice of his partners counting. The gambling then interferes with Campbell’s educational life when he does not participate in an engineering project manned by the team. Tensions peak when Cambell loses $200,000 in Vegas and Rosa quits while simultaneously requiring repayment. Williams and Campbell conspire to trade a large win in his casino for Campbell turning over Rosa. However after Rosa and Campbell win $640,000 with blackjack online, Rosa takes the chips. He is outsmarted when he opens the bag and they are not casino chips but chocolate coins. Williams captures Rosa and takes the chips from Campbell by gunpoint. Meanwhile the rest of the team is counting cards, whom Campbell later joins.