[Movie Monday] 21

Movie: 21

Genre: Action/Drama/Adventure

Third Movie Monday post of the week, and the final spotlight of the week goes to the movie 21!

For those of you that know how Black Jack is played, you will know that collecting cards that has been dealt to you that gets the closest to or exact number of 21 in sum is the winner. “Winner, winner, chicken dinner!” That’s the phrase that has been used by a Chinese, and I’m not sure if that’s entirely true for never having been to casinos, but to beat the dealer in their game of Black Jack at the table is how it’s to be played. And for those that are good at counting cards, such as Raymond from Rain Man movie, has an easy time winning majority if not all the rounds of the game.

When it comes to the movie 21, that is exactly the case with Ben Campbell, a student in Massachusetts Institute of Technology that is studying to become a doctor in medical field. Coming from the family that he does, he can’t bring himself to ask his widowed mother to pay for his college, not even for doctrine, that he works as hard as he could to pay for school. And what’s even more, he wants to win the prestigious Robinson Scholarship s that he may get a full ride to attend since having to pay the tuition out of his own pockets is not really an option with not really having a job to actually pay for everything. He runs into the problem when he gets told that the road to getting that scholarship is very competitive, and in order to get the scholarship, he must “dazzle” the director with an incredible story because even with his brains alone, it won’t get Ben the scholarship that he needs.

His professor for a non-linear course, however, is impressed with how smart Ben actually is and recruits him to join his blackjack team. By weekday, Ben is nothing more than just another college student. By weekend, he has a completely different identity playing Black Jack at a casino in Las Vegas, and within the team, Ben gets placed into the team of the “Big Players” while the team of “Spotters” cues the “Big Players” in when it’s a good time to join a specific table or when it’s a bad time to join. And the Spotters will also cue the players to get out with very specific hand signals, such as playing around with their hair.

However, because of having to be so distracted with playing big time to earn money so that he can pay for his college education, Ben completely forgets about his own close friends in helping them completing an engineering project. And it’s due to the distraction that his friends decide to kick him off the three men team and complete it by their two lonesome selves without him.

Counting cards, as the non-lineage professor tells Ben, is not illegal. It’s just something that the casinos don’t like at all since it would mean they are losing money rather than bringing money in for themselves. However, the casinos do have cameras to try and smoke out whoever is counting to try and get them thrown out and banned from the casino for good, but whether that becomes the case with Ben is for you as the audience to find out on whether or not Ben and his blackjack team gets caught or not. And if he does get caught, will Ben be able to find another way to pay for his college education to become a doctor? Or will he be able to succeed in keeping all the money without getting caught? Furthermore, will he be able to gain scholarship whether or not he gets to keep all the money he’s earned from the casino in Las Vegas? And will he or will he not continue to play with his team? And will he be able to regain the trust of his two friends that he had forgotten about when it came to their engineering project?