Show Down in Vegas

This film is fun, enjoyable and could be educational. 21 (2008) directed by acclaimed American film director Robert Luketic, who directed 2001, Legally Blonde. Jim Sturgess plays Ben Campbell, an ambitious and intellectual student with the grade point average of 4.0 to show for it at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). His dream prevails when he is accepted into the graduate program at Harvard Medical School. Brilliant with numbers but lacks the financial stability, his tuition fees for Harvard Medical School cumulates to $300,000.

Mickey Rosa, played by Kevin Spacey, is a Professor at MIT a rookie of counting cards in his days. Rosa’s challenges Ben in class through mathematics theories which Rosa finds his ability truly gifted.

One night, Ben is summoned and taken into the pits of MIT where five students and Rosa await for his arrival. Rosa introduces Ben to the world of “counting cards” also known as blackjack. Ben, first, must take the initiative test to be accepted into Rosa’s blackjack group: to be terrorized under pressure.

Eventually Ben is accepted into Professor Rosa’s anonymous blackjack club, which every weekend the group of five brilliant MIT’s mathematics whizzes travels to Vegas for weekends of clubbing, drinking, shopping and counting.

Ben promises himself to win what’s reasonable: to pay Harvard Medical School’s tuition of $300,000. However, when jealousy and temptation begin to crackle in the inner circle of co-workers rather than friends, Ben is obsessed and addicted to “counting cards” winnings. Ben has simply gone too far with his winning streaks which have alerted visually under Casinos surveillance, but can Ben count his way out of this one when he’s caught.

Grade: B -