Elizabeth Rhein- 21- Films

One of the films the class watched during the semester was 21. Even though I was unable to make it to class the night the film was watched, I had already watched it a week earlier. Even though I really was not sure of how to relate the film back to religion, I had heard that someone compared it to the seven deadly sins. I thought that that comparison was really interesting and fit well with the class. As for the sins and the film themselves, obviously a group of extremely intelligent college students looking for a way to use their mathematical talents and finding “counting” in blackjack as a fitting hobby goes well with the deadly sins. As the infamous phrase states, “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” As for examples of the sins being shown within the film, I thought greed played a prominent role. The teacher used the students to get wealthy. The main character himself did not stop playing even after getting the necessary amount he needed. At the end, the security guard himself greedily took the money the students won and kept it for himself. Three other sins, wrath, envy, and pride were also seen throughout the film as well as a little bit of lust. One of the boys, the past leader of the group, grew envious of the main character and at one point, sneered at him and called him names. His envy that the main character was better than him finally had gotten the best of him and as that envy grew into wrath, the teacher instantly removed the boy from the group. As for pride, the teacher became a victim of it when the main character rallied up against him and tried to break away and create his own group. The teacher refused for such a thing to happen and so basically destroyed the main character until the main character found a way to use the teacher’s pride against him. Because the teacher thought he was one of the best at blackjack, the offer of playing one last time was too good to pass up. His pride had led to his ultimate downfall. Overall, I really enjoyed watching this film. I had actually watched a film that had almost the exact same plot as this one before 21 had even came out. It was not as good, but there was a teacher and three students who played blackjack and in the end, the teacher had turned against the students, which led to his demise.