New film '21' counts on the real deal for inspiration

[The Judge]

By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY

LAS VEGAS — Jeff Ma walks past the blackjack tables at the Planet Hollywood casino and grins a little. It wasn't that long ago when, on a good night, he and his buddies could walk away from Vegas with $900,000 in winnings stuffed in a duffel bag.

"Sometimes, I do miss it," Ma says, glancing at dealers who eye him as if he's a shoplifter about to shove something in his jacket. "How do you not miss making that much money with a little bit of math?"

CLIP: Catch a preview of '21' before heading to the theater

Of course, that "little bit of math" has gotten Ma and his former classmates at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology banned from about every blackjack table in Vegas. And thanks in part to the group's profitable experiment in card counting — which took casinos for millions in the mid-1990s — your face is videotaped and run against a database of known counters when you walk into the city's more hawkish casinos.

Ma, now 35 and an Internet gambling personality in San Francisco, seems equally proud and defensive about the group's legacy, which gets the Hollywood treatment Friday in 21. "There was nothing we did that was against the law," he says. "We just had a system that worked, and that's not what the casinos are about. For a while there, we were the kings of this place."

Whether 21 will rule theaters is a riskier bet. Gambling pictures — particularly those that center on cards — typically are more art-house favorites than cineplex seat-fillers. In 2003, The Cooler was a hit with critics but took in only $8 million. The 2000 blackjack drama Croupier earned $6 million. Even with stars such as Matt Damon and Edward Norton, 1998's poker film Rounders did a modest $23 million.

But 21 director Robert Luketic wagers that gambling is hotter now with college kids and young professionals. "You've got poker tournaments on TV, and I think a lot of kids see Vegas not so much as a way to make money, but for socializing. We wanted to make a movie more about that lifestyle."

Luketic says many card films "focused too much on the hardware, the mechanics of gambling."

"Unless you're a participant, blackjack is not a spectator sport," he says. "You have to personalize the gamblers. They had double lives, studying at MIT, then jetting off to Vegas and Monte Carlo. They could turn it on instantly. They were walking computers."

Ma doesn't look part cyborg. Tall and easygoing, he became the real-life inspiration for Bringing Down the House, the Ben Mezrich book that became a 2002 best seller.

Ma, a junior and quantitative analysis whiz at MIT, was hoping to enter med school when he was recruited by two classmates in 1994 into a card-counting system that was untraceable for years.

Card counting isn't illegal; casinos just refuse service the way an upscale restaurant can to underdressed patrons. The MIT students stymied casinos by working as a team. In short: One student played the minimum bet at a blackjack table, counting how many high and low cards were being dealt. If a table was "hot," with high cards still in the deck, the student signaled a partner, who would place single-hand bets as high as $10,000.

Though deft card counting increases your odds by only about 3%, "that makes a big difference in what you can make," Ma says. "It's pretty simple math."

Simple for Ma. "He'd try to teach me how to count, and my eyes would glaze," says Jim Sturgess, who plays Ma in the film. "He's a (expletive) walking Pentium chip."

And for nearly seven years, a pretty rich chip. Ma and his team routinely flew to Vegas on weekends with more than $100,000 stuffed in their jeans. Usually, they flew back with more.

One evening, Ma says, he and his buddies decided to take a swim at the MGM casino, but they couldn't decide what to do with the $900,000 in their worn duffel bag. (They chucked it under a pool chair.)

Ma and the 21 cast spent weeks traveling to Vegas to watch high-stakes gamblers, though the stars say that only Ma seemed to understand the mentality of laying down thousands on a single hand.

"I don't gamble. I don't do any of that," says Laurence Fishburne, who plays a casino muscle man who ultimately cracks the scheme. "Life is risky enough."

Sturgess, too, found something a bit disheartening in his first trip last year to Sin City. "It can be depressing," he says. "You're watching a room full of people losing their hard-earned money."

Of course, those gamblers aren't being comped posh suites in Vegas, as Ma and his cohorts were. (The other students, whose real names were not used in either the book or movies, could not be reached.)

Though Ma says the movie captures the MIT crew's camaraderie, 21 takes plenty of liberties. It has the students hunted by men who drag counters into casino basements to pummel and ban them.

In real life, Ma left because video technology was catching up with the team, and "I didn't want to be known as the blackjack guy for the rest of my life." He is now the host of Jeff Ma's Wild World of Gambling on the website DoublePlaytv.com.

He also isn't British, as is his on-screen counterpart, Sturgess. Sturgess says he was concerned about whether Ma, who is of Chinese descent, would be upset by Hollywood's ethnic change.

"But he was very funny about it," Sturgess says. "When we first met, he said, 'You look exactly like me.' Then we went to the top of the Palms to smoke cigars and get to know each other. We realized how similar we really are, from the films and music we like to experiences when we were drunk with girls."

Ma, who has a cameo as a dealer, says he was more concerned with having an actor who captured his personality and the dynamic between his friends. "I would have been a lot more insulted if they had chosen someone who was Japanese or Korean, just to have an Asian playing me," Ma says.

Ma won't say exactly how much cash he got away with, though he says he still does "pretty well" and is being recruited for other online gaming sites. "When I focus on something, I can usually do OK."

One bet he isn't taking, though, is on box office prospects. "That's something I have to admit I don't know much about yet, but I'd give us 50-50 odds of being a hit."

If anyone is confident of the movie's future, it's Sturgess. "Normally, I get nervous before a movie opens," he says. "But if this doesn't do well, I'll just hang out with Jeff, and we'll get all our money back."

[Big Pimpin]

book was very good

[Dr. Jack]

BP – No one believes you read a book. Good try though

[dhunter]

lol

[dave nz]

Look of picures in a book with semi clad women I would believe, but reading a book....nice try though BP.

[Big Pimpin]

fuk off all of you


BP obviously loves a good book while eating his doughnuts

[Deck]

the book was really good. read it about 2 yrs ago.

[jaypasco]

Originally Posted by Deck

the book was really good. read it about 2 yrs ago.

me and deck have many leather bound books and our apartment smells of rich mahogany

[pittviper]

Originally Posted by jaypasco

me and deck have many leather bound books and our apartment smells of rich mahogany

prob. gay post of the day

[dave nz]

TMI Jay.

[dhunter]

obv you guys have never seen anchorman

[smitch124]

Gpod

[Gerk]

Film got an awful review in the local paper here

Would be interested to hear what anyone who sees it this weekend thinks

[jaypasco]

another dumb gambling movie trying to have same sucess as rounders but always fail

[The Loner]

Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner!

If you ever walk through a casino or sit at a blackjack table, you may just want to be hearing those four strange, yet exciting words. It just maybe your lucky night to win at a hand of blackjack.

21 boasts a cast with the likes of Kevin Spacey playing Mickey Rosa, the ex-player turned teacher/mentor. The new up and comer of Jim Sturgess (from Across the Universe fame). The ever so gorgeous Kate Bosworth who brings to life a girl you want to root for in Jill Taylor. And how can you forget the casino security, Cole Williams, played by Morpheus or better known as Laurence Fishburne.

This film delivers!

In 21, a team of card counters from MIT, whose weekend romps to Vegas to make money at blackjack, begins to attract a little attention after a new addition to the team. Surrounded by big money, melodrama, some punch lines and of course the all to flashy lights of Vegas, what more can you ask for in a movie?

The film follows Ben Campbell who goes from being a nobody in Boston, to a somebody in Vegas over night. The high roller story of many a Hollywood story has been sprinkled throughout the film. Ben is a young naive student who needs cash to go to Harvard Med and doesn’t think he will win the once in a lifetime scholarship. With the always beautiful girl in pursuit we are along for the ride in a rags to riches and back to rags story.

Ben is the stereotypical shy, geeky kid with loser friends who happens to be one of the brightest minds in MIT unbeknown to him. In a everyday class at MIT of “Linear something or other”, Mickey Rosa comes face to face with the brilliant mind of Ben. The in class example of a game show was given of the host asking which of the three doors has the new car behind it. Ben promptly picks door number 1, as Mickey points to the chalk board and pulls down door number three to show nothing, Campbell’s mind kicks into high gear. Rosa takes notice visibly and the movie takes shape.

This classroom encounter eventually leads to a late night invite to a room in the back halls of MIT. Once in the room Ben is met with a familiar face in Mickey and Jill Taylor (the girl who is just out of reach of his secret crush) along with a few fresh faces. They are sitting at a mock blackjack table learning the simple math behind counting cards. The conversation ensues and Ben leaves with a fear of whats to come.

We are led through a myriad of scenes where Ben accepts, earns and then is tested in his new found skill of counting cards. All leading up to his first visit to Vegas. And what a trip it was.

The Cinematography was excellent in this film. The film captures the energy and excitement of Vegas all the while bringing us back to the snowy campus of MIT in Boston to ruin the fun. The lights and action are captured well in the faces of the actors along with a great soundtrack to lead us from place to place.

The writing team of Peter Steinfield and Allan Loeb have brought the adaptation of Ben Mezrich’s top selling book “Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions” to the big screen. And they have done a pretty solid job.

On the whole, the film is a crowd pleaser with a great cast, solid performances and believable characters. My only complaint was the length of the film. It was just under two hours and seemed to drag towards the end. The ups and downs of the film really made for slow transitions towards the end leading up to the climax.

I would recommend this film to friends without a doubt.

7.5 out of 10.