Probably one of the main factors that made this movie so awesome was the fact that it was based on a true story.  This group of students from MIT was easily the most successful team of card counters in history and their story is just downright sexy.
Match a sexy story with a sexy cast… and you’ve got yourself one hot blackjack movie.

The story revolves around the game and the strategies these guys use to cheat many casinos out of a lot of money.  Card counting is basically keeping track of the number of high value cards that are left in the deck and knowing his chances of hitting 21 based on how many high cards the deck has at that given moment.  This way, the player can actually hold an advantage over the house.   Blackjack card counting is nothing novel, but what these guys did was just outrageous.

These guys were active from the late 70’s until the beginning of this century and literally look millions of dollars from casinos worldwide.  Eventually, they were caught but this first team form MIT (there were others afterwards) was by far the most successful blackjack card counters ever.

The movie was based on the book “Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions.” The movie stars Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth and Lawrence Fishburne and newcomer Jim Sturgess.

This movie shows not only the crazy fast-paced life of a group of card counters but also just goes into the fun of blackjack and the endless possibilities – not that I’m advocating cheating here ?

Anyway, even for those of us who wouldn’t/couldn’t even try to pull of something remotely so cool, it makes for a great story and an excellent movie and it definitely motivated me to improve my blackjack skills.