New take on Casino Genre

Author: Simon Dexter

Something that might interest those of us who wish to enjoy the odd night at the casino every now and again is an upcoming movie about such times - only by a group of brilliant students who use their skills to give themselves the edge and take the casinos to the cleaners.

The film in question is entitled ‘21′ and boasts a talented cast, which includes Kevin Spacey, Laurence Fishburne and Kate Bosworth.

It follows the life of MIT student Ben Campbell, played by Jim Sturgess, who, along with five other whizzkids and mentor Micky Rosa (Spacey) develop a card-counting system to win millions of dollars.

Based on a real story-turned book by Ben Mezrich, ‘Bringing Down The House: The Inside Story Of Six Students Who Took Vegas For Millions’, the film puts into the pictures the lengths that the Blackjack team have to go to to make their skills pay off.

One of the real-life students who enjoyed phenomenal success at the tables, Jeffrey Ma - and who also plays a cameo role as a blackjack dealer in the film - says: “The idea that there are very few people that leave Vegas (as) winners and we were the ones that almost always left as winners …that’s just an incredible high.

“The system is not like something that cost money to develop. It’s not like a NASA or Jet Propulsion Lab thing. It’s just something we did using our minds. We practiced a lot and it was basically using math to beat the casinos.”

Although card-counting systems are not illegal, casinos don’t look kindly upon ‘counters’ and will ban those that they can catch actually doing it.

Director Robert Luketic says that not all casinos on the Las Vegas Strip were keen to help a movie that showed that the ‘House’ could be beaten.

“When we came to Las Vegas we were greeted with somewhat mixed reception, I have to admit. We were either categorically denied, (told) ’stay away from us’ or ‘don’t film on our property …don’t even come near us’ to what we received with ‘Planet Hollywood,’ ‘Hard Rock’ and ‘The Palms.’ We had unprecedented access,” Luketic says.

“We had things that no other production has ever had in Las Vegas and not on the graveyard [overnight] shift either. We were filming at peak times.”

I wouldn’t want to spoil the ending for those who haven’t read the book but the film certainly provides a different take on the casino genre.

Yes, there have been plenty about casinos in general but not too many that have some sort of card-counting in them - other than perhaps ‘Rain Man’ and the brief success enjoyed by the Babbitt brothers.

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