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(Image credit: Peter Iovino)

Jim Sturgess is a poor student recruited by university professor Kevin Spacey to try to beat the odds in Las Vegas

Jim Sturgess is a poor student recruited by university professor Kevin Spacey to try to beat the odds in Las Vegas.

Based on the true story of a group of students at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology who developed a card-counting system to accrue a fortune at blackjack, this movie gets off to a great start but is too long and doesn't always convince.

However, Sturgess makes an appealing hero, Spacey is a great bad guy and Laurence Fishburne entertains as a casino worker who's onto them. And, once the film gets to the casino tables, it hits the jackpot with some edge-of-seat tension.