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Spacey portrays an aspiring card shark and M.I.T. professor with a brilliant plan to beat the house at blackjack. He recruits five M.I.T. students with heads for numbers. The film is something like /Good Will Hunting /-- genius M.I.T. guy, makes it big. Soon the kids and the professor are in Vegas, counting cards and winning big. Spacey then sits back and smiles.
But, deep in the bowels of the casino, the director of security watches his cameras, and frowns, and gets ready to pounce.
Spacey isn't just a an actor here, and one of the producers as well, along with major producers Brett Ratner and Mike De Luca. The director Robert Luketic, is best known for /Legally Blonde/; since then he made /Monster-in-Law/ and /Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!/
Though much of the movie is easy to read -- the standard helicopter shot over water, ending in a city skyline -- it's still a pleasure to watch for gaming fans . There are great shots of the heroes, walking in slow-motion toward the camera. But there are small plot holes -- such as why do they only play in Vegas, and, not, say, Macau or Atlantic City ?
This is a movie with plenty of flash and fun. And, more than most movies. There's a lot of wish fulfillment and vicarious pleasure. Based on a real case, the story has been fictionalized for the screen.
The actors are mostly winners throughout the picture. Jim Sturgess is the totally naive hero, and Kate Bosworth as the girl most likely to lead him far afield. Laurence Fishburne -- who appears to have apprenticed at the Robert De Niro academy of casino management, remember /Casino/? -- is a commanding presence as the security director.
This is Spacey's finest picture in a long while, perhaps since /American Beauty,/ from the second he fixes his eyes on Sturgess to the moment he cuts him loose. It's a fun performance. Spacey learned long ago that intimidation comes not from singleness of purpose. He's at his creepiest when he gets still, speaking quickly and not moving a centimeter.
He's a true anti-hero -- and it's a blast to see Kevin Spacey on the snarling screen once more.
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