Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

DipitySkillful an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Niall O'Hara I watched this film on a relaxed Sunday evening expecting it to be a light heated flick and an enjoyable game of blackjack, similar to Oceans Eleven or Focus. Instead I found myself feeling anxious the whole time, waiting for the team to fail and inevitably loose all there money. Not the edge of you seat anxious, more the awkward 'why are they doing this' anxious. Of course it came to a relatively satisfying conclusion, as these types of films often do, but I gained little enjoyment from watching this as it was so obvious that everything had to go wrong at some point.Saying this, if you like cards and tense situations then this may be a good film for you. The acting was below average from most of the leads but, as always, Kevin spacey is a delight to watch. A standard plot and some interesting camera work make this an okay film, but there are better, similar films out there.My personal recommendations in order of preference would be:1. Oceans Eleven, 2. Rainman 3. The Hangover 4. Focus

Floated2 21 (2008) tells the true based story of a shy yet educated college student in need of a large sums of cash, within the heavy intent of becoming an amateur cards player. Also starring Kevin Spacey as he features as the dissolute professor who recruits the brightest minds at MIT to count cards for guaranteed profit. Only human error can break the winning streak. 21 stars Jim Sturgess as Ben Campbell. The film happens quickly and precise as the important moments of the film are present in a quiet manner. Ben immediately stands out in a class taught by statistician Mickey Rosa (Spacey), but when Mickey offers him the chance to win untold riches in the game of blackjack, Campbell declines on principle. It's only time will tell when fellow classmate Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth) and the steeply-rising price of college education, that Ben gets on board with the crew. 21 is seemingly interesting and entertaining but there appears to be several small flaws or parts that are rushed or not executed well. Altogether this film is quality for a one time watch.

Rameshwar IN Reviewed November 2011Winner winner chicken dinner, a lot of cheese dripping all over. Featuring good looking leads, a real big mentor and a simple script that may not go too wrong. The director messed everything up spectacularly. Trying to pull in every known stereotype attached to the game and genre, way too long in duration and he may better end up being known as the director who brought the worst in Spacey. Features a typical brilliant boy (Jim Sturgess), with an ordinary life and in need of money/scholarship to get into Harvard Medical school. He realizes his scholarship is in jeopardy and at the same time gets noticed by a shrewd professor (Kevin Spacey) who offers him a spot in his team that specializes in counting cards to beat the dealer in Blackjack. He accepts the offer for two reasons. 1) As a means to an end. 2) His long time crush Jill (Kate Bosworth) is in the team. Finally he ends up getting sucked by the glitz, glamour and easy money of Las Vegas. How he gets his act together comprises the rest of the story. Extremely cheesy with enormous number of redundant scenes featuring characters that are mere caricatures. Cinematography is good, background score is peppy, editing is slick and the lead character is believable. Kevin Spacey has given the worst performance I have seen of him and was a total letdown. They could've added a little more fun while presenting the Blackjack games than just the calculations in the minds of the geniuses that we should imagine. I was a bit disconnected with that.I could not think of any recommendation like 'Watch it only if ...'.. nothing comes to mind. Just drop it. It's easy and more fun.

shl13132 21 is predictable and has clouded motivations on what we are hearing this story.Despite a few performances the acting is dull and wooden. The characters are not fleshed out except for our leading actor who had the strongest performance, even though his performance was still not that strong. The script is messy and predictable. Once Kevin Spacey's character is invited back to play in Vegas again you know what is going to happen for the last half hour of the movie. The opening and closing scenes are probably the worst thing this movie has going for it. It opens up that this college student wants to get a scholarship to Harvard because he can't afford the tuition and he has to write an essay about a life experience that would make the school want to give him this scholarship. So he decides to tell the school about how he went to Vegas and became a criminal and got his teacher at MIT beat up by the casino security. Then in the closing scene he makes all of these comments like: "Does that impress you?" or "Did that make you go 'wow'?" The other part about the script that bothered me was how they kept going back to the same casino even though they knew security was watching them and knew who they were. For the dialogue, there is some really cheesy romantic dialogue that doesn't work. Also some scenes are supposed to funny and they really are not. This movie was very disappointing please don't watch it. Save yourself the pain.