21

6 out of 10

Posted: 06/09/08

Running time: 2:03

MPAA rating: PG-13 (Some violence, and sexual content including partial nudity.)

Peruvian rating: Mayores de 14

Cast: Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, Aaron Yoo, Liza Lapira, Jacob Pitts, Laurence Fishburne, Jack McGee.
Director: Robert Luketic
Script: Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb, based on the book Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich

Photography: Russell Carpenter
Score: David Sardy
Distributor: Columbia Pictures

I just didn't know what to expect from 21. I had read little about it on the Internet - mainly because I wasn't very interested in the movie - and the trailers, while revealing in regards to the overall plot and characters, didn't really convey an idea of how good or bad the film was going to be. It can be said I went inside the darkened theatre pretty much knowing nothing about the movie. And boy, I was disappointed. Not because I had high expectations, but because I wasn't as entertained as I thought I would be. One watches a movie like 21 in order to spend some fun and thrilling two hours in front of the big screen, watching interesting characters beat the odds and be smarter than the owners of the casinos or bars they visit. Instead, while watching 21, I was observing dumb geniuses fall in traps and interact with paper-thin secondary characters in only mildly interesting situations. 21 is not bad, but considering the potential it had, it's quite a disappointment.

The film is "based on a true story", and tells the story of Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess), a graduating MIT student who has been admitted to Harvard Medical School. He's really intelligent (or so we are told), but he needs $300,000 in order to enter, and doesn't have the money. One day, though, an MIT teacher, Professor Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey), makes him "an offer he can't refuse": a position in his team, a group of five students who visit Las Vegas regularly and put into effect a sophisticated card-counting scheme that the casinos have been unable to break. He does this because Ben is supposed to be one of the smartest students he has met, and believes he could be a valuable asset. At first, the kid rejects the offer, but the fact that he really wants to go to Harvard Med, and that he has been attracted to group member Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth) for some time make him accept. After passing a local test, students and teacher go to Vegas, where Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne), the head of security at Planet Hollywood, is expecting them.

The main problem with 21 is that we're supposed to believe these guys are geniuses even though they end up doing really stupid things. Ben, for example, in a very clichéd kind of twist, becomes too arrogant and ambitious, which brings him to his downfall and changes his personality. Choi (Aaron Yoo), another one of his companions, acts pretty much as the comic relief, behaving like a kid and stealing chocolate coins from the small karts in the hotels. And Jimmy Fisher (Jacob Pitts from Euro Trip) becomes jealous of Ben, starting to act really stupidly and earning his permanent retirement from the team. It's pretty hard to believe these guys are capable of fooling the most advanced security systems and the most experimented dealers when they act so dumb. Also, it doesn't really help that the characters themselves are pretty boring... the secondary members of the team are as paper-thin as porn movie protagonists, and although the filmmakers attempt to give Ben a character arc (he starts shy, becomes arrogant, loses his friends and his money, redeems himself, gets his friends back... all really clichéd), he never becomes a real person.

Additionally, director Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde) and his team try to combine too many genres in a single motion picture, which makes it kind of a mess. Yes, it's supposed to be a caper film, but they also try to insert other things. The romance between Ben and Jill, for example, is underdeveloped and uninteresting - Sturgess and Bosworth never really click as a couple -, and their PG-13 sex scene is simply boring. There's also a bit of action; the last few scenes contain a foot chase through the kitchens of the casino, which is as tense and thrilling as watching the grass grow. Lastly, there's also some comedy: Ben's genius friends are inserted as comedic relief and as part of his clichéd character arc and, while amusing, they grow stale pretty fast.

Performances are a mixed bag. Jim Sturgess is not bad at all; he was one of the few good things in Across the Universe (at least this picture is a little better than Sturgess' previous movie), and in here he manages to make Ben a pretty likeable kind of protagonist, considering how undeveloped his role is. (His Scottish accent is sorely missed, though.) Kevin Spacey, who manages to be excellent in pretty much every role he acts in, is great as Professor Rosa. Kate Bosworth (looking almost as skinny as Keira Knightley) is neither bad nor good, but he has zero chemistry with Sturgess. (And what's with that horrible hairstyle?) Supporting performances by the likes of Aaron Yoo (the aforementioned kleptomaniac), Jacob Pitts (who was much funnier in Euro Trip) and Laurence Fishburne (who is pretty much wasted in a thankless role) are adequate, but never really manage to stand out.

I was both entertained and disappointed by the caper aspect of the movie. I was entertained because the Casino scenes are energetic, and the sequences in which Rosa and team show the tricks to Ben and test his abilities are interesting and fun. I was disappointed, though, because, even though 21 is supposed to show how these tricks are applied in the Casinos and how both security and the dealers are fooled by the kids... they never really show all of these stuff. Clever and quick editing is used so that we never actually see how these guys are handling the cards, and the rules of the game and the ways they use to win all that money is never explained clearly. I guess there are two possible explanations for this: either the filmmakers wanted this to remain as a mystery to heighten the suspense, or they were lazy and uninformed and didn't have a clue of how to explain all of this. Unfortunately, the latter theory seems more plausible to me...

21 is not a bad motion picture. It's only mediocre. Although the plot had potential, the filmmakers make it evident from the very start that they aren't trying to make a smart movie about genius college kids trying to trick casinos with their mathematical abilities and their skills in Blackjack. Instead, they tell the story of paper-thin characters (who are supposed to be intelligent) who become involved in romantic issues, problems of jealousy and ambition, fall in stupid traps, and happen to be trying to trick casino dealers. Like I said before, I didn't have too many expectations from the flick. All I wanted was to be entertained by a film that treated both its characters and the plot in an intelligent fashion. Unfortunately, 21 is dumber and less slick than what Luketic and his cast and crew would like us to believe.