Reznet

'21' and 'Leatherheads' Are Good Bets

By Nancy Kelsey

Two movies in theaters right now give moviegoers justifiable cause to yell "winner, winner, chicken dinner!" and "touchdown!"

In "21", Jim Sturgess, Kate Bosworth, Laurence Fishburne and Kevin Spacey introduce the blackjack rookie, including yours truly, to the inside world of card counting and high stakes betting of Las Vegas.

The movie focuses on the boasted real-life-story of an MIT student desperate for medical school money who becomes reluctantly immersed in casino card counting. Ben Campbell, played by Sturgess, is perfect because he lacks the emotion that emerging casino technology uses to detect cheating. He is able to make millions of dollars as part of a team of students who travel to Vegas on weekends while maintaining their student status during the week.

When one of them has a little too much to drink, blowing their cover, the game is over. From that point on, the movie takes a sharp turn as Ben's relationship with Bosworth's character becomes strained, his money is gone and their leader turns on them.

I thought this movie was intelligent and novel. Gambling movies always seem to be a little intense, but this one had a very real, buddy kind of character that we could all root for and sympathize with as things heat up. But don't worry, folks. True to the theme that good ends come to the good, our protagonist emerges victorious despite his strife—well in his own way.

I predict that this movie will be up for awards come red carpet season. Therefore, this flick warrants at least three and a half frybreads.

Another movie that did not disappoint was the football movie, "Leatherheads," starring George Clooney and Renee Zellweger.

In this movie a do-anything-to-get-to-the-top reporter, go figure, and an aging professional football player become entangled in a romance while watching the game of football change before their very eyes.

Desperate for financial sponsorship for what was then, in the 1920s, a failing professional sport, Clooney's character recruits a college football-war hero to play for his Duluth, Minn., team.

After this recruitment brings in the big bucks and countless fans, football becomes a big deal. And the sport the teams loved—without playbooks, full of trick plays, entertaining in its indifference to rules—becomes regulated by Congress under a football commissioner.

All the while, Zellweger's character seeks a story from the war hero player, classically handsome John Krasinski, who is more interested in her than the secrets he spills. After some questionably unethical behavior, she gets the story she wants.

Ultimately, this movie is a little overkill on the happy endings. Still, it was a nice theatrical escape in its optimism.

For that reason alone, I give "Leatherheads" three frybreads.

Nancy Kelsey, Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, is studying journalism at the University of Nebraska graduate school in Lincoln. She is a graduate of the Freedom Forum's American Indian Journalism Institute. She interned as a reporter at The Seattle Times last summer. Next summer she'll report for The Associated Press in Boston.