Bringing Down the (Movie)House

21
Directed by Robert Luketic
Columbia Pictures

The Sting, Ocean's Eleven, Casino, Rounders...now 21 takes its rightful place in the echelon of gambling/Vegas movies. Based on a true story, 21 regales its audiences with the story of a team of MIT students who learn how to count cards and win big in Sin City. Tops of the box office for two weeks in a row before being knocked out by the Prom Night remake (oh, those fickle high schoolers and their horror movies), this flick is highly entertaining, wonderfully cast, and makes you want to hop a plane to stay a night or three in the Hard Rock Resort and Casino...or perhaps Planet Hollywood...maybe the Riviera...(Wow...lots of money put up for product placement in this one, folks.)

Jim Sturgess stars as Ben, an MIT student whose only goal in life is to go to Harvard Medical School. Being an average-middle-class-math-genius, he's short of funds and needs a scholarship. Meeting with a Harvard prof, Ben realizes he has to "jump off the page" in order to beat out the 70-some-odd applicants for a free ride to Harvard Med. Simultaneously, Ben and his buddies, Miles and Cam (Josh Gad and Sam Golzari) worry that they don't have much going on in their lives, save for a 2.09 competition in robotics. After a fateful day in an advanced math class far above this English teacher's head, Ben is invited to a card-counting team meeting led by his professor, Micky Rosa (the brilliant Kevin Spacey). It seems Ben has found the life experience he's been searching for.



This small group of MIT students learn to count cards, signal opportunities, and play off each other and exercise their rights to bring down the house in Vegas every weekend. Aside from the attraction of lots and lots of money (gotta pay for med school!), Ben is drawn into the team by Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth) and joins Choi (Aaron Yoo), Fisher (Jacob Pitts), and Kianna (Liza Lapira) in a fast-paced world of high rollers, night clubs, comped suites, and limousines. However, as we all know, Vegas doesn't like to lose and on the case is Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne) and his colleague Terry (Jack McGee). Before they are completely replaced by facial recognition software, Cole and Terry are doing their best to squelch the big winners and are breathing down on the team's necks.

Sturgess's performance is believable to a point - you can relate to his need for money, but his arrogance gets the best of him at times and the characterization becomes a clichéd rags-to-riches performance. Bosworth plays simple support and really doesn't have much energy here. Yoo is hysterical as Choi, that friend we all know and love who enjoys swiping everything that's not nailed down in hotel rooms. Fishburne is wonderful as Cole Williams, and when he puts those thick rings on to show those dastardly card-counters he means business, you cringe with the poor victim. The prize of this film, though, is Spacey.



As Rosa, Spacey is the professor you want to have in class - who knew math teachers could be so charismatic? Aside from that, he plays a mentor, a friend, a businessman - and he's very much in control. Rosa has so many sides to him you get as lost trying to count his characteristics as trying to watch those cards with the MIT counters. Spacey can do no wrong as far as I see it and he certainly does not disappoint in 21.

The one disappointment, however, is the length of the movie. Just minutes over two hours, 21 slows down about halfway through and it takes a while to pick up the pace to the climax of the film. The high-energy of the casino scenes are riveting, but the slow Boston scenes make the time crawl by. Once you finally arrive at the climax, though, these characters come into full swing and it's a great ride to the end. Shave about half an hour off this one and you've got one fantastic picture.

21 is a winner -- and as anyone who knows gambling knows... winner, winner, chicken dinner! Double down and take a friend to see this flick before it's out of theaters.


21 is playing in theaters now.