by Bridget N. Watts

Created on: September 28, 2008   Last Updated: January 21, 2010

Last night I saw 21 at the movies and I have to say that it was quite good. Not great, not mind blowing, but entertaining and fun. Much better than the trailer had me think, but at the same time not as good as I had hoped. 21 tells the story of this smart math nerd at MIT who needs money to get into Harvard medical school. It turns out his math teacher is actually the organizer behind this secret card counting team, who go to Vegas every few weeks to count cards while playing black jack and get very rich in the process.

The math nerd is at first a bit reluctant to join them, but he soon gets a change of heart. After all, he does really need the money and what is the point of being so smart and gifted if you do not use these gifts to get ahead in life. He starts traveling to Vegas with a few other brainy students and he adjusts quite well to his new life as an important rich gambler. In fact, he starts to get a little bit too much into it.

He no longer has time for his geeky loser friends, which is kind of cruel. Then again, can we really blame him when he is leading such an exciting double life, complete with lots of money, the best parties and the hottest girl in school he always had a crush on. Of course, she never gave him the time of day when he was a geek and only now seems interested. I had a hard time understanding why he is so into her. Sure, she is really hot and sexy, but she does not seem to have much of a personality. In fact, if she speaks 20 lines in the entire movie that is a lot.

It looks like he has got everything under control and life is better than it has ever been. He is raking in money like crazy and almost has enough saved to get into medical school. However, he soon learns a valuable lesson that he cannot just get away with all that he is doing without any consequences.

I thought it was a fun movie. I usually quite enjoy movies like this. It reminded me of this TV series in which a group of card counters go from casino to casino to have fun and get rich. I guess now that I think about it it basically the exact same idea, minus the smart students angle. That is OK though, a movie does not have to be very original to be enjoyable.

The only two problems I had with this movie were that the plot wasn't very convincing and that one of math nerd's nerdy friends annoyed the hell out of me. He was portrayed as this fat dumb creepy loser who liked to talk with his mouth full. At least on three different occasions he is having a conversation with a mouth full of food, which really was not necessary at all. Why do geeks in American movies always have to be so over the top stupid and lame? I have met a bunch of geeks in my time and none of them have ever been that bad.

If you are looking for a fun movie and you enjoy watching people play a lot of cards, go check it out.

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