Over the past few nights I’ve been watching segments of the movie 21 (came out last year, starring Kevin Spacey). I queued this up on NetFlix a week after I returned from Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas… guess I still had gambling on my mind. I finally finished the movie last night.

One thing I love about NetFlix is that they teamed up with Xbox 360 and you can now stream NetFlix movies in High Def directly through your Xbox 360 and watch them on your big screen. No more waiting 3 days for your movie to arrive. No more having to watch movies on your PC monitor.

21 is a modernized version of the true life story that tells about a MIT group that discovered card counting and took their skills to Vegas. By counting cards in blackjack, you have an advantage over the house and can win insane amounts of money. Counting cards isn’t illegal, but getting caught doing it will probably result in a visit from large men who want to smash your hand with a hammer.

I remember when the movie was coming out in theaters, History Channel was telling the true story with the real participants. I actually enjoyed watching the History Channel program better then the movie. Kevin Spacey is a good actor, and pulled off his role as the teacher very well. I just didn’t like the concept of the director trying to bring this story into 2008. They should have just filmed the movie as it happened in the 1970s or whatever.

The movie was just OK in my opinion. They give you a few minutes of background in how to count cards, but they don’t really get into the background of the characters in the movie. It annoyed me that I never found out where the characters came from, why are they counting cards, what happened to them once their scheme was up? The movie only gives you a little background on the main character. If they filmed it as a “true story” with real characters it would have been great. I’d like to know what ever happened to the real original card counters.