21

Reviewed by:
Stan Horaczek

The Skinny: An MIT math-alete needs big bucks to pay for Harvard Medical School, so he joins up with a card-counting team led by a smarmy professor (a perfectly smarmy Kevin Spacey). Along the way, he ditches his nerdy friends for the Vegas Strip, hooks up with the hottest girl in school (Kate Bosworth), and tries not to get his head beaten in by an aging casino security goon (Laurence Fishburne). We would've just taken out a loan, but whatever.

The Good: The movie definitely has a Vegas feel at times, probably because it was filmed in real casinos like Planet Hollywood and the Hard Rock. We expected to leave the theater smelling like smoke and nursing freshly broken thumbs courtesy of some angry pit boss named Bruno. The gambling sequences are enjoyable little montages of chip stacking and card flipping, and there's no shortage of PG-13 strip club footage. The card-counting racket is pretty interesting, and it's cool to see it on-screen without having to hear Dustin Hoffman incessantly jabber on about toothpicks and Judge Wapner. It also gained an entire half of a star rating for being the only Vegas movie this decade not to use that insufferable "A Little Less Conversation" song.

The Bad: Fans of the book on which it's based, Bringing Down the House, might be disappointed that the film's association to the book is about as loose as the slots at Binion's. But don't expect any huge Ocean's 11–style plot surprises, unless this is your first time to the theater. Gambling addicts might want to steer clear, since we left the theater wanting to bet our next paycheck on which bum in the park was going to pee his pants. Plus, we couldn't help but feel sorry for Josh Gad, who plays the chubby smart-ass friend and will probably spend a lot of his career losing roles to Jonah Hill.

Who's the Boss?: While we aren't dim-witted enough to assume that every student at MIT looks like they just walked out of a 52-hour LAN party, we can't believe that there's a girl that looks like Kate Bosworth on that campus that wasn't created with some kind of cloning machine much like the one from Weird Science.

Theater, DVD, or Watch on TNT in Five Years?
See it in the theater. And if you feel like gambling, get extra butter on your popcorn and see if your heart keeps beating through the night.

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