Unreal but entertaining.

Rating: 9/10 (18 May 2008)

Having been to Las Vegas and also loving table games I found the film entertaining and mildly nostalgic even though my trip was only a couple of years ago.
The film is very loosely based on a bunch of MIT students who used card counting rather laboriously to win around $60,000 each with a couple of exceptions over a long period in various Casinos around the USA. They were eventually banned from casinos and could have legally challenged the casinos for their rights to play there but instead pursued their studies and careers.
The film however takes us on a silly fantasy tour in which the players win extraordinary amounts and being caught means a violent exit from the casinos. The film is not only unrealistic but totally misleading. It was up to about a decade ago that some casinos used a three deck shoe for Black Jack but now as with Australia there are five deck shoes which makes card counting almost impossible as well as automatic shufflers which totally make it card counting useless.
Kevin Spacey again performs well as the lecturer who runs the team of recruited card counters. The idea that you have to be some sort of genius or A grade grad student is a fallacy you just need to highly motivated well trained and have a reasonable memory and several months experience at Black Jack.
The other ridiculous aspect of the film is that if you wanted to play really big and win big in a few sessions at any of the major casinos you could go to the high roller or premium rooms. Another strange thing about the film is that they are supposed to be playing at various casinos and the Casino Investigator who is tracking them Cole Williams ( Laurence Fishburne) appears to work at all the casinos at the same time which is really silly.
I guess most people not only miss my observations but wouldn't really care and just enjoy the action and bright lights of Vegas and above all the fantasy.
So for fantasy and entertainment I give the film three stars.