(detailed information about this entry from Wikipedia)
21 (also referred to in advertising as "21: The Movie") is a 2008 drama film from Columbia Pictures. It stars Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, and Laurence Fishburne. The film is based loosely around the story of a 1990s incarnation of the MIT Blackjack Team.
The film draws from Bringing Down the House, the best-selling book by Ben Mezrich. The film was released on March 28, 2008.
Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) is an MIT student who – needing to pay school tuition – finds answers in counting cards. In his non-linear equations class, he amazes his professor, Mickey Rosa, by correctly understanding variable change and correctly solving the Monty Hall Problem. As a superior math and statistics student, he is recruited to join a group of mathematically-gifted students that heads to Las Vegas every weekend with fake identities and the know-how to turn the odds at blackjack in their favor. Unorthodox math professor Mickey Rosa (Kevin Spacey) leads the way. By counting cards and employing an intricate system of signs and signals, the team can beat the casinos. Drawn by the money, the Vegas lifestyle, and his teammate, Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth), Ben begins to push the limits. Though counting cards isn’t illegal, the stakes are high, and the challenge becomes not only keeping the numbers straight, but staying one step ahead of the casinos' menacing enforcer, Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne).
- Jim Sturgess as Ben Campbell, the protagonist, an MIT student incredibly good with numbers but in need of money, who becomes a member of the blackjack team. Based on Jeff Ma.[1]
- Kevin Spacey as Mickey Rosa, math professor and the founder of the blackjack team. Based on a composite of J.P. Massar and Johnny Chang[2]
- Kate Bosworth as Jill Taylor, a member of the blackjack team. Based on Jane Willis.
- Laurence Fishburne as Cole William, a casino security agent who becomes determined to take down the team. Based on employees of Griffin Investigations[3]
- Aaron Yoo as Choi, a member of the blackjack team.
- Liza Lapira as Kianna, another blackjack team member
- Josh Gad as Miles Connoly
- Jacob Pitts as Fisher, another blackjack team member. Based on Mike Aponte
- Jack McGee as Terry
- Roger Dillingham, Jr. as Head Bouncer
Jeff Ma, the person the character Ben Campbell is based on (known as Kevin Lewis in Mezrich's book), makes a cameo as one of the dealers in a casino scene.
This is the third film in which Kevin Spacey and Kate Bosworth have starred together. The first was Beyond the Sea, which Spacey directed, and the second was Superman Returns. The pair will again star together in the Superman Returns sequel Superman: The Man of Steel. This is also the second film that Kate Bosworth and Robert Luketic have made together, the first being Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!.
[edit] Production
The scenes in the MIT bar were actually filmed at the People's Republic. MIT would not allow filming on campus. Filming also took place at Harvard Medical School[4] and the Christian Science Center in Boston, Massachusetts. Several scenes were also shot at Boston University.[5]
Several TV programs have been based upon Ben Mezrich's books 'Bringing Down The House' and 'Busting Vegas'. The BBC's Horizon strand, in January 2006, released 'Making Millions the Easy Way' - a documentary exploring the advanced methods used by a Strategic Investments breakaway group, the Amphibians - revealing the strategy behind their winning formula.
[edit] Marketing
As a way to get more viewers into theatres, there is a Gaia Quest in which users watch the trailer in their "Gaia Movies" and go to talk to an NPC to get an item for their Gaia character, which is a pair of sunglasses called "21 shades".
[edit] Critical reception
The film received negative to mixed reviews from critics. As of March 29, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 32% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 88 reviews.[6] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 48 out of 100, based on 27 reviews.[7]
[edit] Factual inaccuracies
The movie falsely claims that "biometric identification" is the only mitigation against card counting. In reality casinos today use continuous automatic shufflers which make the game memoryless and completely immune to any card counting technique. The movie also implies that the technique used resulted in continuous wins when in reality the technique could only create an approximately 1% bias in the card counter's favor.
[edit] Casting controversy
Mark Shanahan of The Boston Globe wrote "Willis, 38, who grew up in Mount Vernon, Ill., had never played blackjack when she joined the team in the early 1990s. Then a student at Harvard Law School, Willis and her boyfriend were both "math geeks." They were also friends with Jeff Ma, an MIT student who was one of the ringleaders of the school's clandestine blackjack club. "Jeff would occasionally have an expensive bottle of wine or champagne, and it didn't make a whole lot of sense. Then he told us about Vegas," Willis says. "I think it dawned on him that we could play blackjack and also give the team, which was mostly Asian and male, a little diversity."[8]
Although the real-life characters upon which the film 21 is based were Asian-American, studio executives determined that most of the film’s actors would be white, with perhaps an Asian female."[9]
[edit] Soundtrack
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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21 (2008) 
21 (2008)
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21 - The Movie (2008) (USA)
