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Day 87 - 3/28/09 - Movie #84

BEFORE: Vegas Week rolls on with this story of the MIT students who counted cards at blackjack. A few years ago, I read "Bringing Down the House", the book this was based on. Plus I saw "Breaking Vegas", the documentary on the History Channel - so I do know a bit about the story already.

THE PLOT: The fact-based story about six MIT students who were trained to become experts in card counting and subsequently took Vegas casinos for millions in winnings.

AFTER: I was really looking forward to this film, but I'm afraid that the movie just didn't do the book justice - it oversimplified the card-counting process, and also lessened the number of people on the MIT team - some Hollywood executive probably thought that the average movie-goer wouldn't "get" the film if it were too complicated or had too many characters. The real MIT team had about a dozen spotters, not just 3, so they could cover more tables. They also actively recruited more players, had several teams going at once, and also visited Mississippi riverboat and Native American casinos across the country.
There were some weird anomalies in the film - like showing MIT students playing basketball (I doubt there's even a gym at MIT) or Fishburne's character offering to fix Ben's college transcript - HUH? How does a casino security guy have any juice at a Massachusetts university?
I also didn't care for Jim Sturgess, his acting was just horrible. I watched "Across the Universe" late last year, so whenever I saw him walking in slo-mo through a casino, I expected him to sing "Good Day Sunshine" or "Dear Prudence".

RATING: It would have been an 8, but I'm taking 2 off the count for being LESS exciting than the book. So 6 out of 10 decks