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Short description
Ben Campbell is a gifted mathematics student at MIT who needs a large sum of money to pay for medical school. Recruited by his unorthodox professor, Micky Rosa, he joins a small group of fellow students who travel to Las Vegas at weekends. Using a system of card counting, they win substantial amounts at blackjack under assumed identities. Ben is drawn in by the money and by Jill, a member of the team, but the casinos' security staff begin to take notice.
Robert Luketic directed the film, which sits between Monster-in-Law (2005) and The Ugly Truth (2009) in his filmography. Allan Loeb and Peter Steinfeld wrote the screenplay, and Michael De Luca and Dana Brunetti produced. Jim Sturgess plays Ben, with Kevin Spacey as Rosa and Kate Bosworth as Jill; Aaron Yoo, Liza Lapira and Jacob Pitts appear as other members of the group.
Made on a budget of 35 million dollars, the film took about 160 million dollars worldwide, a strong return. On IMDb it holds 6.8/10 from roughly 280,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.7/10 from over 5,000 votes. A critics' rating of 5.3/10 from 168 reviews is noticeably lower than the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film is based on Ben Mezrich's novel "Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions" (2002).
- Ben Mezrich spent several years gathering information about a group of MIT students who used an advanced card counting system. He met with former team members, the main protagonist himself, casino security specialists, and everyone else who had any connection to the story.
- Filming took place from March 2007 in Boston and Las Vegas.
- Jeffrey Ma (the prototype for Ben Campbell) appeared as a dealer in the Planet Hollywood casino.
- One of the participants in that MIT student team, and possibly the main protagonist himself, was John Hirschtick – the founder and first CEO of SolidWorks.
- It all started in 1994, when an outstanding MIT student was invited to fly to Atlantic City to watch Holyfield fights. That weekend, this young man saw how mathematics helped his friends win several thousand dollars from the casino in a couple of hours. Such a demonstration was enough to draw Kevin (Ben in the movie) into the world of blackjack.
- Between 1994 and 1998, these gifted students earned several million dollars in Vegas.
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