21
Movie Review
"21"
Review by Eric D. Snider
Grade: C+
Rating: PG-13
Released: Friday, March 28, 2008
Directed by:
Cast:
In "21," an M.I.T. math whiz joins a secret cabal of card-counters who fly to Vegas on the weekends to make a killing at the blackjack tables. That's the hook, the part you might not have seen in a thousand other films. But the rest is as generic as the title ("21"? Really? That's the best you could come up with?), a story about a nobody who becomes a somebody, forsakes his friends, and learns What's Really Important.
Yawn is right. This is a prime example of a movie that isn't bad, per se, just unnecessary, a competently made but wholly unremarkable trifle. It trades exclusively in clichés and stock characters -- and yet, strangely, director Robert Luketic ("Legally Blonde") seems to believe he has made something compelling and original. And I have to think, if I'VE seen lots of movies exactly like this one, then shouldn't Luketic have done so as well?
Based apparently rather loosely on a true story, "21" begins with Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess), an upstanding, Boston-bred, good-to-his-mother math nerd, trying to win a scholarship to Harvard medical school. Without the free ride, he has no hope of paying the $300,000 his post-secondary education will cost him. In the meantime, he works for $8 an hour at a men's clothing store and finishes out his senior year at M.I.T., working on robotics projects with his dumpy comic-relief buddies.
After making a dazzling observation in an advanced math class, Ben is summoned by the professor, Mickey Rosa (Kevin Spacey), to a clandestine meeting. Led by Professor Rosa (but please, call him Mickey), a small group of students has mastered the science of counting cards, accurately working the probability statistics to all but ensure a win every time they play blackjack. It's not illegal to count cards, and by most standards not even immoral or unethical. Of course, the casinos frown on it, but the nice thing about Mickey's system of decoys and code words is that it's practically undetectable!
Ben refuses to get involved, of course, then reconsiders after realizing he has no other way to pay for med school ... and also after being flirted with by Jill (Kate Bosworth), the pretty girl on Mickey's team. (I have to say, he's an awfully easy mark. If you ever need someone to help you execute an ill-advised get-rich-quick scheme, target Ben Campbell, as he will put up almost no resistance.) The rest of the squad comprises jealous loose cannon Fisher (Jacob Pitts), kleptomaniac goofball Choi (Aaron Yoo), and nondescript Kianna (Liza Lapira).
The film, written by Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb and based on Ben Mezrich's book, stalls for a while in the middle, with Ben and the crew having achieved unprecedented success in Vegas on the weekends while maintaining their ordinary, boring lives in Boston the rest of the week. Ben likes being a big-shot in Sin City, wishes he could be that guy 24/7. He puts the moves on Jill, whose affections for him waver frequently and without apparent provocation. He earns the trust and respect of Mickey. And meanwhile, a loss prevention expert named Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne) watches the security tapes and tries to figure out why certain casinos are taking such big hits at the blackjack tables every Friday and Saturday night.
When the twists start to come in the final act, it's enough to give the film a boost of energy but not enough to turn it into anything special. Jim Sturgess, recently seen in "Across the Universe" and here affecting an inconsistent American accent, could be a charismatic leading man if the story didn't require him to make so many dumb decisions (what, there are no banks in Boston to store your huge piles of cash?) and just generally be a sap. Kevin Spacey, though, can use his snaky charm to sell almost anything, even a trite old tale like this one. I'd rather see a movie about his character.
Grade: C+
Rated PG-13, a little profanity, brief partial nudity, some mild sexuality, a little violence
1 hr., 58 min.
Copyright © Eric D. Snider.
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This item has 4 comments
April 3, 2008 at 7:58 am
This is, quite possibly, the only time I have thought you were wrong, Eric. It seems you've missed the point of 21 completely. In other films portraying evil, sin, temptation, etc, it tends to be hokey and unbelievable as a real-life possibility. In 21 the temptation is so near, so easy and so harmless- you can either do it or not- it wouldn't affect you, either way. That's the only thing that makes evil possible- apathy.
21 shows the slight, gentle hand of evil in a relationship between Sturgess and Spacey that is so subtle and comprehendable- from mentor to friend to protector and admirer- and when Spacey lashes out like the devil himself; you realize that your life is no longer your own, your choices are not your own. He owns you.
April 3, 2008 at 9:12 am
I didn't like this movie. It was extremely boring, particularly if you consider the subject matter and the hijinks they got up to. I really recommend the book, though. The book is great.
I even recommend the documentary (Discovery Channel? History? Travel? one of those channels) over the movie.
The movie, by the way, only bears a fleeting resemblance to the book.
June 8, 2008 at 6:18 am
What bugged me most about the movie (besides the weak plot that Eric describes) was how entitled everyone felt. In the beginning, Ben whines about how he's so smart but no one will give him a free ride to one of the most elite institutions in the world (and by the way, if he's so poor, how is he paying for MIT?). Kid, just do it the way the rest of us plebeians do: go to a state school and take out craploads of student loans.
The movie's lack of a moral compass also troubled me. It doesn't ever come out and say that card counting is wrong, but if it isn't, then why are they being so sneaky about it? And besides Ben, no one else had a motive for making all that money playing blackjack. Professor Rosa wants to go on a sabbatical? Jill is playing blackjack because she used to play it with her dead father? I'm not buying it, movie. Without motivations they just look like greedy, elitist jerks who feel entitled to money because they're smarter than everyone else.
August 6, 2008 at 3:42 am
My husband and I agreed that it's like Ocean's 11 for people who thought Ocean's 11 was too complicated.