Worst Book Adaptation

Forget "Jurassic Park", this IS the worst adaptation of a book to a movie.
I know a lot of Stephen King fans are disappointed with most of his books-to-movies.

Let me assure you: THIS IS WORSE!

Now, I am going to get picky. IF the credits said "Inspired by the Book..." I would be more okay with the film. But, NO - it says "Based on the Book..." WHICH IS A LIE!!! There's almost nothing based on the book in the film. Wait, that's a lie. There's college kids from MIT and there is Card Counting and Blackjack. I guess that's enough to qualify as "Based". PLEASE note the sarcasm.

I'm annoyed.

Honestly, the film AS A FILM is not bad. However, it is a horrible adaptation of one of the best books I've ever read. It removed so many interesting and tense moments of the real events. Instead, the film replaces them with lots of character development of ONE character (yep, just the main character gets any attention and/or motivation). Side characters are just their for story purposes, and we never really learn much. They did make Lawrence Fishbourne's character pretty mean and ruthless, but the Poker Chip Incident was left out. The changed a lot of the hand signals. BUT, they left in the Code Words, which was something I assumed they were going to neglect. So, I enjoyed that.

It's a fluff film. Someone (I believe Kevin Spacey) was smart enough to realize that the MIT Blackjack Team (one of the many...) was a good story, and worthy of a film being made about them. Then, someone else (one of numerous people, probably) were so STUPID that they allowed this hollow story of a script to be transformed into a film. So much potential, so little return on the investment (your time in the theatre).

Okay, all "drama" aside: If you don't know anything about the MIT Blackjack team, you'll probably somewhat enjoy the film, but you'll still probably have a hollow sense in your mind once the film is over. If you have read the book, or even seen the documentary: YOU WILL BE DISAPPOINTED.

Bummer.