He applies for the prestigious Robinson Scholarship, which would cover the entire cost. 21 was a box office success and was the number one film in the United States and Canada during its first and second weekends of release, despite some mixed reviews.īen Campbell, a mathematics major at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is accepted into Harvard Medical School, but cannot afford the $300,000 tuition. IMDb offers a brief summary of the film: '21 is about six MIT students who become trained to be experts in card counting in Black Jack and subsequently took Las Vegas casinos for millions in winnings.' The film stars Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Bosworth, Liza Lapira, Jacob Pitts, Aaron Yoo, and Kieu Chinh. The film is inspired by the story of the MIT Blackjack Team as told in Bringing Down the House, the best-selling 2003 book by Ben Mezrich. 21 is a 2008 American heist drama film directed by Robert Luketic and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing.