Money. Everyone could do a lot more for themselves if they have a heck lot of it. And there’s plenty to be had from the casinos in 21. To know how to get it to rolling into your hands, you simply need to be a cool, genius mathematician with a bright memory.
If you think you’re up to it, the table you’d want to be sitting around would be the blackjack (21) card game one. There used to be a chap some decades ago who recruited students and ex-students from such places as MIT and Harvard University. Together, they made quite a bucketful of bucks. This adapted screenplay, of course, is a lot more fanciful than the real story, since the idea here is to make a sizeable amount of money from the audience.
For that same reason, the lead character, Ben (Jim Sturgess), is a groovy dude who’s brainy and with no cash to fund his education. Poor fellow. You immediately feel sorry for him and think he’s doing the right thing when someone offers him the chance to be on that team.
What I really would like to know is how much Hollywood paid the writers of this film. There’s not the slightest trace of research, knowledge, or inclination to be anything but frivolous. The jokers want us to believe that there is only one tiny casino in the whole of that gambling city. Why else would the group keep visiting the same place even though two of them are marked gamblers? And the secret signal that the characters employ is so loud, clear, and repetitive that even a kindergarten child ought to be able to see through it.
It is not without reason that card games are called the pastime of the devils. The addiction gets a little worse if money is involved too. Eating away time, mornings and nights seem no different. After a certain point, you’re sure to forget that you’re got studies, work, and friends that require your attention.
Continuously alternating between two identities and worlds (in this case, the serene, homely, Boston University and the lavish, fast-paced Las Vegas) one can easily lose track of oneself, momentarily. Thus, Ben wakes up one late morning and yells into the phone, “What do you mean there’s no room service?” And then realizes that he’s at home in his own bedroom and it’s his mom at the other end.
Robert Luketic’s casino-heist, youth thriller points out one of the almost-surest ways towards degeneration: easy, sudden riches.
