The Spotter (left) inexplicably ruining the Big Player's game by staying at the table
The phrase "the book was better" was coined for 21. I've no doubt about it. Sure the phrase was probably invented many, many years before 21 and the book it's based on existed, but with no other movie adaptation has it been so true.
Watching the movie after reading the book (Bringing Down the House, see my review of it here), it's almost laughably obvious that the producers have decided that one of the most incredible (mostly) true stories of the past decade just wasn't incredible enough. So they added some explosions, boobies and many other blockbuster movie cliches, no matter how nonsensical they are given the content of the book.
A lot of effort in the early chapters of the book goes towards explaining that Las Vegas of the 1990s is a world away from the rough-and-tumble reputation it built up in the 50s and 60s. Casinos would never risk their license on beating up a card counter and being taken to court. Never. And in the book, the MIT blackjack card-counting team rarely comes close to being beaten up (and the only scene in which they do was made up for the book).
So who is the second main character in 21? An old-school detective who more than once brings suspected card counters down to a dark cellar (ominously yet obviously lit with a single downlight) and beats them to a pulp. The character has zero depth and is at no point believable, therefore any suspense the filmmakers were trying to build with him as the villain fell completely flat.
This is but one of dozens of major points in the film that make absolutely no sense.
And there are innumerable small annoyances littered through the picture as well, such as the "secret" hand-signalling that a Blind Boy of Alabama would have no trouble noticing, though strangely all the trained casino dealers and pit bosses are none the wiser.
I'm so disappointed that a good book has been given such shitty treatment.
