The Movie "21" - Guess what? The Book is Better

Kevin Spacey does a fair job portraying the smooth, slightly greasy college professor who was the leader of the pack of M.I.T. math whizzes who think they can beat the odds in Las Vegas. Because my wife and I visit Las Vegas as often as we need to, we usually opt to see most movies set in that American La Ville lumière. So we ooh and aah over places we've been, people we've seen, and games we've played, yet this movie was a little slow for us.

Maybe it was that we have been to Las Vegas so often that the brilliance is a little dimmer. Or more likely it was that we both read the 2003 book on which the film was based a few years ago, Bringing Down the House, by Ben Mezrich. It was promoted as non-fiction; however, the author took excess license with many of the characters and facts. Oprah would never let him get away with that today. Nevertheless, the premise was the same and the book, as is often the case, had the depth that a 2 hour movie just cannot achieve.

Jim Sturgess, the apparently rising Brit star, was the protagonist who does a good job in the role of real-life Jeff Ma. As with most criminals, the greed and the lure of the chase is what eventually trips them up. How many bank robbers stop after one successful bank job? Sturgess personifies the greediness that humans are capable of. And you can bet that a high percentage of movie watchers were pulling for him. Hmm...