21 casino movie

So how exciting would it be if, say, somebody devised a system that used simple math to give a blackjack player the edge over the dealer? "Inspired by" the real-life story of the M.I.T. students who took Las Vegas casinos for millions, "21" has been reshaped to fit a simple movie template -- and it's nearly as much fun as watching an insurance professional compute actuarial tables.

In "21," directed by Robert Luketic, the worst thing a gamester can be accused of is gambling. "Don't give in to your emotions," M.I.T. professor Micky Rosa tells his blackjack students. "Play the system." Good advice for a card-counting scheme. Bad advice for a movie. If you want to see how a formatted screenplay looks when it's actually on the screen (you can just about count the page numbers as they flip by, and maybe measure the margins, too), "21" may provide a practical lesson: How to follow all the "rules" and end up with zero. It's not unwatchable, but you could watch it with your eyeballs tied behind your back and enjoy it just as much.

Here's another example of a good story turned into a purely generic one -- no doubt with the aid of a Bob McKee screenwriting seminar and textbook.

Act I: M.I.T. undergrad Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) is a nerdish wicked-smart Bostonian white guy working with his best friends (a fat guy and a Persian-American guy) on a project for a robotics competition. He really needs a $, scholarship to get into Harvard medical school, but he's only one of 72 talented prospects. He's recruited by Professor Rosa (Kevin Spacey) to join a secret cabal of card-counters with a scheme to hit Vegas on weekends and make a fortune. He resists. A Beautiful Girl (Kate Bosworth) attempts to woo him. He resists. OK, he really needs the money, so he joins up -- but just until he can get enough for full college tuition.

He learns the blackjack system in a montage sequence or two and passes the test. The Beautiful Girl rebuffs his advances in an attempt to maintain a strictly professional relationship.

Act II: The team goes to Vegas and the guys win. Another montage sequence? Maybe. It's getting a little fuzzy. But wait: A casino security guy named Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne) starts to notice something -- and not a moment too soon because he's losing all his business to high-tech biometric face-recognition software. Technology! Drat! Card-counting isn't illegal, but the casinos want you to know that if you're caught doing it, they might take you down in the basement and beat the living craps out of you.