21 (2008 film)
21 | |
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Directed by | Robert Luketic |
Written by | |
Based on | Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich |
Produced by | |
Starring |
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Cinematography | David Sardy |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | Sony Pictures Releasing[1] |
Release date |
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Running time | 123 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $35 million |
Box office | $159.8 million |
21 is a 2008 American
Plot
Ben Campbell, a mathematics major at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is accepted into Harvard Medical School, but cannot afford the $300,000 tuition. He applies for the prestigious Robinson Scholarship, which would cover the entire cost. Despite having a Medical College Admission Test score of 44 (at the time, MCAT scoring was on a scale of 3-45) and high grades, he faces fierce competition, and is told by the director that the scholarship will only go to whichever student dazzles him.
Back at MIT, Professor Micky Rosa challenges Ben with the
Over many weekends, the team is flown to Las Vegas and Ben comes to enjoy his luxurious life as a high roller. The team is impressed by Ben's skill, but Fisher becomes jealous and fights him while drunk, leading Micky to expel him. Cole Williams, the head of security at Planet Hollywood, has been monitoring the team and begins to focus on Ben.
Ben's devotion to blackjack causes him to neglect his role in an engineering competition, which estranges him from his friends. During the next trip to Vegas, he is emotionally distracted and fails to walk away from the table when signaled, causing him to lose $200,000. Micky is angered and quits the team, demanding Ben repay the $200,000. Ben and three of the students decide that they will continue to play blackjack without Micky, but they are caught by Williams, whom Micky tipped off. Williams beats up Ben and warns him not to return. He also reveals his own personal history with Micky, once a successful card counter who got Williams fired after winning over a million dollars in one night at his casino while he was away at his father's funeral.
Ben learns he is ineligible for graduation because a course taught by an associate of Micky's is marked as incomplete (with Micky's influence, the professor initially gives Ben a passing grade throughout the year without him having to work or even show up to class). His winnings are stolen from his dorm room. Suspecting Micky, Ben confers with his teammates and they persuade Micky to make a final trip to Vegas before the casinos install
Micky flees with the bag of chips but realizes he has been set up when he discovers that the bag is full of chocolate coins. It is revealed that Ben and Williams made a deal to lure Micky to Vegas so that Williams could capture him. Williams' men take Micky, and Cole explains he's going to get in contact with a friend of his with the
Ben's long-time friends (with whom he has reconciled) Miles and Cam also turn out to be quite good at card-counting while working with Choi and Kianna during Micky's capture and as such, the six-person team make a lot of money, despite Williams' robbery of Ben and Micky's chips. The film ends with Ben recounting the tale to the dazzled and dumbfounded scholarship director.
Cast
- Jim Sturgess as Ben Campbell
- Kate Bosworth as Jill Taylor
- Kevin Spacey as Micky Rosa
- Laurence Fishburne as Cole Williams
- Aaron Yoo as Choi
- Liza Lapira as Kianna
- Jacob Pitts as Fisher
- Josh Gad as Miles
- Sam Golzari as Cam
- Jack McGee as Terry
- Helen Carey as Ellen Campbell
- Jack Gilpin as Bob Phillips
Production
The filming of 21 began in March 2007. Principal filming of the
Reception
Critical response
Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 36% of 172 critics gave the film a positive review, for an average rating of 5.20/10. Out of over 250,000 audience reviews, 66% were positive. The site's critical consensus reads: "21 could have been a fascinating study had it not supplanted the true story on which it is based with mundane melodrama."[3] On IMDb, 87.6% of users gave the film a rating of 6 or higher, with an average rating of 6.8.[4] Metacritic gave the film an average score of 48 out of 100, based on 29 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[5] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[6]
Box office
In its opening weekend, the film grossed $24,105,943 in 2,648 theaters in the United States and Canada, averaging $9,103 per venue and ranking first at the box office.[7] The film was also the number one film in its second weekend of release, losing 36% of its audience, grossing $15,337,418, expanding to 2,653 theaters, and averaging $5,781 per venue. The film dropped to third place in its third weekend, losing 32% of its audience, grossing $10,470,173, expanding to 2,736 theaters, and averaging $3,827 per venue. By the fourth weekend it fell to sixth place, losing 47% of its audience, grossing $5,520,362 expanding to 2,903 theaters, and averaging $1,902 per venue.
By the end of its theatrical run, the film grossed a total of $157,802,470 worldwide—$81,159,365 in the United States and Canada and $76,643,105 in other territories, against a budget estimated at $35 million.[8]
Casting controversy
A race-based controversy arose over the decision to make the majority of the characters White Americans, even though the main players in the book Bringing Down the House, upon which the film 21 is based, were mainly Asian Americans.[9] However, the real-world MIT blackjack team has not been consistently majority-Asian, and only one of the characters in the book was based on a real person; the rest were composites or fabrications. Ben Kaplan, who is Jewish, stated "While Ben Mezrich has been quoted as saying that Micky Rosa was a composite of myself, J.P. Massar, and John Chang, the fact is there is little, if anything, that resembles either of us except that he started and ran the team and was focused on running the team as a business".[10] The lead role was given to London-born Jim Sturgess, who required a dialect coach to speak with an American accent.[11]
Nick Rogers of The Enterprise wrote, "The real-life students mostly were Asian-Americans, but 21 whitewashes its cast and disappointingly lumps its only Asian-American actors (Aaron Yoo and Liza Lapira) into one-note designations as the team's kleptomaniac and a slot-playing 'loser.'"[15]
The Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) reported on their web site: "After the 'white-washing' issue was raised on Entertainment Weekly's web site, [21] producer Dana Brunetti wrote: "Believe me, I would have LOVED to cast Asians in the lead roles, but the truth is, we didn't have access to any bankable Asian-American actors that we wanted."[16]
Home media
21 was released on
Reaction from casinos
In pre-production, the producers and the book's original writers predicted that the Las Vegas casinos would be unhelpful, as a film that told viewers the basics of card counting might hurt their bottom line. A featurette included with the DVD completely and accurately describes the "Hi-Lo" system used by the MIT Blackjack Club and by Rosa's team in the film.
The writers of the film were told by the producers that MGM Studios would finance the film, though all "MGM" casinos (including one used by the real MIT Blackjack Team) are owned by MGM Resorts International and are no longer related to MGM Studios. As another DVD featurette reveals, the casinos (including MGM Resorts) saw the film as an attention-getter; people who saw it would be encouraged to go to Vegas and play. The film withheld critical strategy details (such as the conversion from the "running count" to a "true count"), and most beginning card counters underestimate the number and value of the mistakes they make.
Soundtrack
21 | |
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Soundtrack album by Various Artists | |
Released |
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Genre | Soundtrack |
Label | Columbia |
Singles from 21 - Music from the Motion Picture | |
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [18] |
The soundtrack was released at the same time as the film.[18]
- The Rolling Stones—"You Can't Always Get What You Want" (Remixed by Soulwax) (6:07)
- MGMT—"Time to Pretend" (Super Clean Version) (4:20)
- LCD Soundsystem—"Big Ideas" (5:41)
- D. Sardyfeaturing Liela Moss—"Giant" (3:42)
- Amon Tobin—"Always" (3:38)
- Peter Bjorn and John—"Young Folks" (4:37)
- Shook One —"Soul Position" (4:16)
- Get Shakes—"Sister Self Doubt" (4:22)
- The Aliens—"I Am The Unknown" (5:27)
- Rihanna—"Shut Up and Drive" (3:34)
- Knivez Out—"Alright" (3:31)
- Domino—"Tropical Moonlight" (3:28)
- Unkle—"Hold My Hand" (4:58)
- L.S.F. (Lost Souls Forever)" (3:32)
- Broadcast—"Tender Buttons" (2:51)
- Other tracks
- Although it is not included in the soundtrack, Moby's "Slippin' Away" (Axwell Vocal Remix) plays in the scene when Ben is passing through airport security.
- The song "Everybody Get Dangerous" by The Red Album. It is played on a distant radio when the team is in a poker club.
- The songs "I Want You to Want Me" by Cheap Trick and "Music is Happiness" by The Octopus Project were also featured in the film but not on the soundtrack album.
- The song "Estelle (feat. Kardinal Offishall) was also featured in the film but not on the soundtrack album.
- In the promotional trailers, "Break on Through (To the Other Side)" by The Doorswas used.
- During the restaurant scene where the team explains to Ben how they work, "Home" by Great Northern can be heard playing in the background.
- The song "Again with the Subtitles" by Texas artist Yppah is another uncredited song in the film.
- The track played as the team makes off at the end of the film is "Rito a Los Angeles" by Ocean's Eleven, about actually robbing casinos in Vegas.
- My Mathematical Mind by Spoonwas featured in the trailers.
See also
References
- ^ a b "21 (2008)". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Retrieved 23 March 2021.
- ^ 21 (2008) - IMDb, retrieved 2022-12-07
- ^ "21 Movie Reviews, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on 22 November 2009. Retrieved August 27, 2021.
- ^ 21 (2008) - IMDb, retrieved 2022-12-01
- ^ "21 (2008): Reviews". Metacritic. Archived from the original on 2 April 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-02.
- ^ "Find CinemaScore" (Type "21**" in the search box). CinemaScore. Retrieved May 19, 2020.
- ^ "21 (2008) - Weekend Box Office Results". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2008-04-06.
- ^ "21 (2008)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2008-04-28.
- ^ "Real MIT Blackjack Team - 21 Movie True Story". chasingthefrog.com. Retrieved March 31, 2013.
- ^ a b 21 (2008) History vs. Hollywood
- ^ Janusonis, Michael. "Movies: 21 star Jim Sturgess got a crash course in card counting". projo.com. Archived from the original on April 11, 2008. Retrieved 29 May 2015.
- ^ Justin Berton (2008-03-27). "Hollywood deals Jeff Ma a good hand with '21'". San Francisco Chronicle. Archived from the original on 29 March 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-29.
- ^ Berry, Jillian A. (March 14, 2008). "INTERVIEW MIT, Vegas, Hollywood". The Tech. Archived from the original on June 17, 2017. Retrieved March 31, 2013.
- ^ Bowles, Scott (2008-03-26). "New film '21' counts on the real deal for inspiration". USA Today. Retrieved 2010-04-23.
- ^ Nick Rogers (2008-03-26). "When the stakes are high, '21' folds". The Enterprise. Archived from the original on 2008-04-01. Retrieved 2008-03-29.
- ^ "CONTROVERSY STILL SURROUNDS DVD RELEASE OF MOVIE "21"". manaa.org. Archived from the original on 2013-10-04. Retrieved March 31, 2013.
- Amazon.com. 22 July 2008. Retrieved March 31, 2013.
- ^ a b Brown, Marisa. "21 [Original Soundtrack]". AllMusic. Retrieved 2008-04-02.
External links
- Official website
- 21 at IMDb
- 21 at Rotten Tomatoes
- 21 at Metacritic
- 21 at Box Office Mojo
- 21 at AllMovie
- MIT Alumnus and Busting Vegas Author Describe Experience of Beating the House Archived 2017-03-09 at the Wayback Machine
- Photos of the filming of 21 near the campus of MIT: 1 Archived 2016-10-19 at the Wayback Machine 2 Archived 2016-12-22 at the Wayback Machine 3 Archived 2016-10-19 at the Wayback Machine 4 Archived 2016-10-19 at the Wayback Machine 56 Archived 2016-10-19 at the Wayback Machine
- 6 Archived 2016-10-19 at the Wayback Machine 7 Archived 2016-10-19 at the Wayback Machine
- Official world wide release dates with links to different national sites