for Card Counting fun and the best recent use of old Cowboy CurtisÂ
A couple years ago while watching yet another poker tournament on Bravo or some other channel, they ran a TV special about other card games, and their coverage included Vegas security and mentioned a book called Bringing Down the House. Surprisingly, I’d actually heard of the book before and even snippets and summaries of the story it contained, but that special was enough for my wife to decide she wanted to read it. She got the book (for Christmas or her birthday, I forget which) and she read it… then I read it. I loved it, and at the time I recall thinking to myself, “Somebody should make a movie out of this!”
Well, they did. It’s called 21 and it comes out tomorrow. I managed to see a screening of it a few weeks ago, and I have to say that they captured the book pretty well. Not exactly, of course, but the spirit of a team of people using a card counting scheme to win money in Vegas.
The movie had good performances all around, though I especially enjoyed Laurence Fishburne as the casino security man trying to catch the people “stealing” the casino’s money.
Completely 100% worth the price of admission.