when i first heard they were making this movie i was very excited. i have watched multiple television documentaries about this story of the team of card counting mit students, and every time i did i kept thinking they should make the story into a movie...  so, now they finally do, and they make this mediocre film, 21.

my problem is that they added so much crap to the film that didn't need to be there.  like the the whole laurence fishburn character for example.  he plays an old-school security guy for the casino that gets onto what the team is doing and even takes one of them to a back room to beat some information out of them.  i don't think this actually happened, and unless it did, it is so ridiculous and unnecessary.  just like so much other crap they did to this movie and the 'true story'.

the story is so good and interesting on its own that they didn't need to hollywood it up.  which is exactly what it felt like.  as if some producre came in and said we need a twist, a bad guy, some friend bonding, etc... this needed to be an independent film from a good writer/director that could understand that there is a great story there and it didn't need to have all that junk added to it.

anyway, needless to say it was a medicore, predictable, film rather then the interesting and engaging and fascinating look at one of the biggest las vegas "scams" ever (not really a scam though, since it was technically legal).