I felt I was "due" a good film and at last, here it was! This story of geeks, gambling and double crossing hit many of the right notes; 8 - I really enjoyed it.
A maths teacher at MIT recognises a brilliant student and invites him to join a small team of similarly bright students to count cards, to win at black jack in Vegas. Their winnings are going well and they start to enter the rich lifestyle of big time gamblers, but they are also under watch by the guys who prevent card counting... usually by a beating. And when the student starts gambling instead of being smart, he loses everything - his graduation from MIT, the money he was saving he enter Harvard and he is out of the team. He convinces them all for one last big win.
This film has so many good elements in it, including good lighting (like the standing at the window silhouette) and filming (great close ups and fast speed motion in the casinos). I even liked the Fight Club style narration and the slightly over-the-top-retro look of Slevin, but maybe that is just Vegas. One big thing I really liked about was Kevin Spacey who I think is brilliant; he is opposite to me of the uselessness of
Jack Back. Even the music was just right. And Laurence Fishburne as the casino thug was good as the older guy struggling to keep job his while being over taken by technology.
The double cross while not entirely predictable, was not really a surprise either, and the time twisting was a little weak but it was still enjoyable. And most of the other characters were just window dressing, even the students best friends. Anyway, this film still delighted the inner, and the outer, geek of me.
I felt I was "due" a good film and at last, here it was! This story of geeks, gambling and double crossing hit many of the right notes; 8 - I really enjoyed it.
A maths teacher at MIT recognises a brilliant student and invites him to join a small team of similarly bright students to count cards, to win at black jack in Vegas. Their winnings are going well and they start to enter the rich lifestyle of big time gamblers, but they are also under watch by the guys who prevent card counting... usually by a beating. And when the student starts gambling instead of being smart, he loses everything - his graduation from MIT, the money he was saving he enter Harvard and he is out of the team. He convinces them all for one last big win.
This film has so many good elements in it, including good lighting (like the standing at the window silhouette) and filming (great close ups and fast speed motion in the casinos). I even liked the Fight Club style narration and the slightly over-the-top-retro look of Slevin, but maybe that is just Vegas. One big thing I really liked about was Kevin Spacey who I think is brilliant; he is opposite to me of the uselessness of Jack Back. Even the music was just right. And Laurence Fishburne as the casino thug was good as the older guy struggling to keep job his while being over taken by technology.
The double cross while not entirely predictable, was not really a surprise either, and the time twisting was a little weak but it was still enjoyable. And most of the other characters were just window dressing, even the students best friends. Anyway, this film still delighted the inner, and the outer, geek of me.
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