Review of 21 (2008) by Joe G — 29 Jun 2010

What does one do when George Clooney and his "Ocean's Players" take a break after three movies?

You get a bunch of nerdy college kids together to make a slick-looking movie about the game of Blackjack and then stick Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburne in it to give it credibility.

"21" is a movie that's fun but frustrating.

It WANTS to be a good movie but holds itself back, putting the gun back in the holster instead of going for the kill and pulling the trigger.

Jim Sturgess stars as "Ben Campbell" (which I would guess is a play on the name of the author of the book on which this was based), a lonely, smart, shy M.I.T. student gifted with the math skills of Stephen Hawking and the looks of the emo kid who leeches off the free Wi-Fi all day at the Starbucks on the corner.

Ben is JUST sexy enough because his friends are, of course, so dorky, they make Trekkies look like George Clooney.

Nevermind working for NASA, Ben works for "eight dollars an hour" as a manager for a high-commission men's clothing store, where he impresses the clientele with rounding up their bills to the nearest dollar.

When he uses these skills to impress Professor Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey) during one of his classes, Ben is invited to join an exclusive card-counting club / college student financial-prostitution ring where the members use math and logic to win at Blackjack.

This, of course, provides the movie with about 40 minutes of slick, stylishly-shot footage of cards and chips being thrown around in slow-motion along with the kids acting "cool" and saying "cool" stuff every minute or so while raking in the cash.

Rosa explains to Ben that "counting cards isn't really illegal.".

Okay.

This is why Rosa gives fake ID's to his students and makes them adopt accents and looks and costumes. Disguises are a good idea but this is so over-the-top as to be obnoxious.

They go out on the casino floors dressed like rejects from a thrift store sales rack, making scenes, shouting loudly and almost drunkenly whenever they win huge stacks of chips. In fact, their behavior is so outrageous, wearing Disney character costumes to the tables would have been more subtle.

Why, if counting cards is not illegal, do the kids have to dress up and act like children who have Mountain Dew on constant IV drip and attract attention to themselves in this manner?

But, I guess Rosa seems to know what he's doing since this racket has been going on for years.

His sworn enemy (I love that, "sworn enemy") is Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne) who knows Micky like the back of his hand. Cole spends his days and nights in the dark, cursing about new technology that simplifies what he's been doing for years (something about technology erasing the ability to truly "know" somebody) and beating the living stuffing out people who cheat his casino by, say, legal card counting.

He knows Micky, knows the score but, ironically, his "old-school" methods obviously haven't helped him bust up Micky's ring of card-playing clowns on acid. One would think Cole, having been cheated this many times, would recognize Rosa's game by now. You'd also think that Spacey's team would visit another casino other than the ones monitored by Cole, or hell, go to Atlantic City as Cole suggests.

Doesn't matter. It makes for okay drama when you want a break from all the Blackjack-playing montages are over. Don't get me wrong. Blackjack can be fun...but it gets old real fast. It's dull. I'm sure that, in the hands of a more capable director (Robert Luketic is the director of LEGALLY BLONDE, for cryin' outloud), this could have been more entertaining.

But, no, we get "Movie Vegas", complete with montages of cards being flipped and zoom-ins and chips flying and neon and strippers and loud music and the obligatory PG-13 sex-scene between Ben and Jill (Kate Bosworth).

Jill and Kianna are the only sexy people in Rosa's group, by the way. In no way do they look like bookworms with molasses-thick sweaters and Coke-bottle glasses. And, of course, as the script orders, Ben has to get it on with one of them...so it might as well be Jill, right?

It's ok.

It's done so smoothly that you don't realize, for one minute, that nobody in Movie Vegas is ever, say, overweight or old or looks like they could all be visiting from a Bible Belt trailer-park convention.

Director Luketic even avoids the needless fascination of the docu-drama and suddenly decides to give us a completely different movie for the last quarter of the film: a completely telegraphed, last-minute con-man twist just to save face.

Yeah, it works and sums everything up.

But it feels more like a push than hitting 21 to me.

-- Matt.