21, or 21: The Movie is a movie inspired by the true story of the MIT Blackjack Team, starring Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey and Kate Bosworth.
SPOILER WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow.
The cast of "21"
Ben Campbell (played by Jim Sturgess who appeared in The Other Boleyn Girl) is a top MIT student who is accepted into Harvard Medical School. He is interviewed as one of the potential candidates for the prestigious Robinson Scholarship, which will pay for his the academic expenses in Harvard including accommodation. Despite boasting impressive results of a 1590 SAT score, 44 MCAT score and a 4.0 GPA at MIT, Ben is told that competition for the scholarship is very high. Ben is urged to write an essay which will make him stand out from the other candidates.
During a math class, Professor Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey) challenges the students with a three door variable change problem, which Campbell volunteers to answer and solve brilliantly. Rosa invites Ben to join MIT’s Blackjack Team led by himself, which consists of the Choi (Aaron Yoo), Jimmy Fisher (Jacob Pitts), Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth) and Kianna (Liza Lapira). They specialize in counting cards in order to win money in the casino. They follow a system by learning to communicate using secret signals (code words for the number and numbers for words). Campbell is reluctant at first, but eventually joins the team after he is persuaded by Jill, his crush. He promises Jill he is joining the team only to save up to $300,000, the amount he needs for the full expenses at Harvard Medical School. After weeks of intensive training to follow the regimen, Ben is given a test at an illegal, underground casino, which he easily passes.
The team goes then to Las Vegas to try their luck. Campbell’s impressive performance impresses Rosa, while triggering jealousy from teammate Fisher. Meanwhile, Ben’s relationship with Jill is taken to the next level. One evening, a drunken Fisher sits at Ben’s table. Fisher starts talking about the “retard” in Rain Man. He then causes a brawl by spilling a drink on the table, which escalates into gunshots being fired. Rosa then kicks Fisher off the team and sends him home by giving him the airplane tickets. All the while, security chief Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne) monitors Ben very closely.
Back at MIT, Ben screws up his group project by giving his friend Miles the incorrect microchip for the 2.09 competition. His teammates angrily kick him out from the project. All of this inflicts a severe inner conflict during Ben’s next trip to Vegas. He winds up losing all the money he had that night. An aggravated Rosa leaves, threatening Ben to reimburse him for the entire loss.
Ben, even more aggravated gets his three teammates to form their own team and bankroll the rest of their money. Williams finally detects Ben and his pals are counting cards, finds Ben and beats him up, then lets him go with a dire warning.
Ben returns to MIT, only to find his dorm room ransacked; even worse, the blackjack winnings he has been hiding in the ceiling have also been taken. His future at MIT and Harvard is also at stake. Even though Ben suspects that Rosa is behind it, he cannot prove anything, so he makes an offer: he’ll win back the money he lost, before biometric face-recognition software takes over at casinos. Rosa takes up his offers without a second thought.
This time around, Ben and the rest of Micky’s Blackjack Team go back to Las Vegas. Rosa has a team order of none of the members leave alone if something happens as they will have to meet at a club. They rake in over $640,000 before Williams finds them again and gives chase. The team members rapidly bag their chips, then split up and flee through the casino. During the chase, Ben switches bags with teammate Jill Taylor, and then with Rosa.
Rosa gives ducks into a limousine and tells the driver to drive to the airport (breaking his earlier promise) but only to find that the bags were switched and the driver is the casino manager. It turns out that Williams, who has been trying to catch Rosa for over a decade, made a deal with Ben, promising to allow him to “make a killing” in return for Rosa. On one occasion, Rosa won over seven figures at the tables of the casino Williams worked while Williams was away attending his father’s funeral, and Williams was fired. Williams betrays this deal by forcing Ben to give up his chips at gunpoint. However, he still helps Ben by forcing Rosa to pass Ben so he can graduate while turning Rosa in to the IRS.
Meanwhile, Ben’s friends Miles and Cam join him and Choi, Kianna and Jill and form a team to take on Las Vegas.
Ben ends his story with the following summation: throughout his life, he won a fortune twice and he lost them both times. Sure enough, the recruiter is dazzled.
Overall, it is an entertaining movie with decent but predictable plots.
My ratings: 6 out of 10.
Popularity: 1%
