Sony certainly took a gamble (arf!) when they decided to adapt the true story of a group of MIT students who took on the Las Vegas casinos and won a shed-load of cash. 21‘s only star was Kevin Spacey in a supporting part, with virtual unknowns filling out he main roles.
But in hindsight the studios have played a great hand (boom boom!) and seem to have struck the jackpot (honk!) (That’s enough… -Ed), with the film romping to first place in the UK box office.
The movie, rather accurately described by Empire’s Olly Richards as “Ocean’s 11: The College Years”, took more than double the cash of its nearest rival – Son of Rambow – with the haul rather decent for the pre-summer period. Still, it’s good to see Rambow‘s continued presence amongst the box office big hitters, a fact almost as comforting and heart-warming as watching a fluffy dog tuck into a plate of warm, doughy cookies.
The independent brit-flick almost maintained the form that took it to the top of the pile last week, with ticket sales only declining by 16% from its opening weekend — which, believe us, is pretty impressive.
Something that certainly was the opposite of impressive — unimpressive you might say — was the performance of George Clooney‘s 1920s-set American football comedy Leatherheads, which slunk in, tale-between-its-legs, at number six. Maybe it was the focus on a sport most Brits find baffling, perhaps it was the general indifference to the 1940s screwball comedies the film pastiched, or ultimately just the fact that Renee Zellwegger is just bloody annoying that persuaded Joe Public to steer wall clear from this lightweight effort.
Making a slightly more spirited showing was Martin Scorsese‘s glossy Rolling Stones’ film Shine a Light. The general feeling about the flick was that it was a competent concert movie, but not of the same calibre as Marty’s music masterpiece The Last Waltz. Still, fans of the freakish wrinkly rockers pulled together — as they did during the blitz – and showed up in large enough numbers to make this limited release number nine in the chart.
