by Alexandra Burrows
Over the years, these teams have created some incredible stories, including Avatar (2009), Pulp Fiction (1994), and Inception (2010).
Sometimes though, actual real world events end up being wilder and crazier than anything that all the writers in Hollywood could ever conjure up. These stories often end up being better and more entertaining despite the fact that they are often stranger than fiction.
21 (2008)
21 (2008) is a film about the MIT Blackjack Team and how it used card counting techniques to take on many of the world’s biggest casinos and win.
Almost every film about betting and casino games is popular, as these hobbies are enjoyed widely and are surrounded by intrigue among those that don’t personally take part. We can see this popularity in other ways too, such as the fact that there are so many betting sites needed to meet the demand. This, of course, means that the companies have to run promotions like sign up offers to stand out from the crowd, which, in turn, helps to increase interest even further.
But while nearly all casino and betting films garner a lot of attention, few are as gripping or fascinating as 21.
The MIT Blackjack Team operated through the 1980s and into the 1990s, with a mix of staff, students, and alumni from MIT, Harvard, and other big universities. They trained hard to be able to accurately count cards while playing blackjack, tipping the advantage in their favour.
While not against the rules or the law, casinos don’t tend to like players successfully counting cards, so the team had to use a diverse set of people to try and remain undetected.
21 is a dramatised and shortened retelling of this decade-long saga to help spice up the story, with personal conflicts, and even some hostage-taking.
While based on a true story, much of the elements around this are works of fiction, so don’t take everything in the movie as the truth.
Sully (2016)
In January 2009, news headlines all over the world were focused on one story. An Airbus A320 has made a water landing on New York’s Hudson River, miraculously avoiding skyscrapers, bridges, and river traffic. News crews quickly nicknamed the event “the miracle on the Hudson” due to the fact that all 155 passengers and crew members survived with few serious injuries.
Directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Tom Hanks, Sully (2016) is a biographical drama that retells the events of 15th January 2009 and the subsequent investigations that sought to understand the cause.
With these two big names involved, little needs to be said about the quality of the film. That said, it grossed $240.8 million at the box office, making it the 36th highest-grossing film in the world that year. It also received a hugely positive response from critics and the public alike, with an 85% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
While Sully accurately depicts the events of the bird strike and water landing itself, it received some backlash for how it criticised the investigation by the US National Transportation Safety Board, depicting the investigation as “prosecutorial” while most in the industry regard investigations as important forums to learn from mistakes so that they can be prevented in the future.
Chesley Sullenberger, the real-life pilot that was played by Hanks actually requested that the names of NTSB officials be changed as he was unhappy with the way that the post-accident investigation was portrayed in the film. Instead, an expert actually involved in the investigation told the Associated Press that he remembers being “extraordinarily impressed” by how both pilots performed on the day of the event.
This aside, Sully is a great film that you can watch over and over again.
Escape From Alcatraz (1979)
Today, the island of Alcatraz is a popular tourist attraction for those visiting San Francisco but between 1934 and 1963, it was regarded as the most secure federal detention facility in the entire United States of America.
This high level of security was achieved through the typical features you’d expect of a prison, such as high walls, locks, and barbed wire. These were pretty difficult to defeat on their own, but in the unlikely event someone did manage to circumvent all these layers of security, they still faced an insurmountable challenge of making the 1.25-mile journey to shore.
Combined, this led most people to believe escaping from Alcatraz was impossible, so the US Federal Government used it to house notorious criminals like Mickey Cohen, Al Capone, and Machine Gun Kelly.
Faced with spending the rest of their lives on Alcatraz, 36 prisoners attempted to escape while incarcerated there. Of these, 23 were caught by guards and quickly returned to their cells. A further eight are confirmed to have died, while a further five are presumed to have succumbed to forces of nature while swimming to shore.
Escape From Alcatraz (1979) retells the story of one of the most famous escape attempts, one that is still shrouded in mystery and conspiracy today. In 1962, shortly before prisoners were moved from Alcatraz, Frank Morris attempted to escape from the island with two accomplices, the brothers John and Clarence Anglin.
For the most part, the film was an accurate representation of both life at Alcatraz and the escape plan, though some artistic license has been used.
The final scenes of Escape From Alcatraz hint that the trio was successful, though official reports from the FBI at the time would suggest otherwise. However, more recent evidence has come to light that their raft had been discovered on nearby Angel Island along with footsteps leading away from it.
In 2003, the TV show Mythbusters tested the escape and deemed that it could be plausible after the show’s presenters constructed a raft from raincoats. Based on this, it seems that Escape From Alcatraz may actually be much more accurate than anyone first thought.
