[[folder: Film ]]

* CriticalResearchFailure: Likely to avoid actual card counters spawning out of the woodwork, the film's version of counting is more than a little impossible in real life.
** The principle is indeed easy to understand, but try doing this without making mistakes for several hours. This is a job for people GoodWithNumbers.
** True, but in the case of card counting being GoodWithNumbers does not amount to complex math, just very rigorous and quick mental arithmatic. Mind you, some of the more advanced techniques that were used by the real MIT team (such as ace tracking) are a lot more complex than the basic high-low running count
** The techniques alone in the film are a severely watered-down version of how it should be carried out. If you try to do it exactly the way it was done in the film, you '''will''' lose money.
** Considering his goal from the get-go is to get into Harvard, and most of the first act centers around him learning about the scheme and talking about how he's only joining to get enough money to afford a Harvard degree, it isn't really "Throwing the dog a bone" so much as it is the solution to the actual conflict of the film.