Movie Review: 21

A handful of brilliant MIT students are counting cards on weekend trips to Vegas, while I'm counting the improbabilities and predictabilities of this slick, stylish and facile film. Who'll get to 21 first? This story claims to be "fact based", but I'm left wondering how many "facts" remain, and not having read the book from which the movie is taken ("Bringing Down the House" by Ben Mezrich) it's pure guess work on my part. Still, while things may add up to 21 at the gambling tables they don't add up for the audience. It's an engaging enough entertainment with a good feel for Vegas, an interesting young cast with a couple of reliable, veteran actors thrown in (Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburne) and a promising premise. Ben Campbell (British actor Jim Sturgess) is a gifted, modest MIT student with a dream of attending Harvard Medical School but no money to back it up. His part time, $8 an hour job in a mens clothing store won't earn him the $300,000 he needs to fulfill that dream, and there are 67 applicants for the scholarship that could make the difference. What's a boy to do? Enter Micky Rosa (Spacey), one of Ben's math professors who happens to have a secret sideline: He trains a select group of MIT students to count cards, earning big bucks on weekend jaunts to Vegas. Before you know it, Ben is throwing over his two nerd best friends for glamorous hotel suites and fancy suits as well as hooking up with the "hottest girl in school" (a vapid Kate Bosworth).

There's very little in "21" that we haven't seen before, and the action is predictable right down to the final scene. With paper thin characters who seem to live for cheap thrills, we're left with no involvement in the story, plus there are some big implausibilities here. It's hard to believe, for instance, that casino security boss Fishburne would actually take a college boy into the basement and beat the crap out of him simply for counting cards (which isn't even illegal). Equally difficult to buy is the rapid transformation of the main character, Ben, from dorky science geek to slick Vegas stud. Gimme a break. Not to fault any of the actors, who do what they can with these silly characters. The exception is Bosworth, who's such a boring actress she manages to make her role into a complete zero. The charismatic Aaron Yoo, playing Choi (a kleptomaniac member of the group), is a joy to watch but under-used with not nearly enough screen time. Director Robert Luketic doesn't do a great job here either. Although the gambling group is supposed to be moving from casino to casino in order to avoid detection, they always seemed to be in the same place with no sense of varying casino settings. And those hand signals the students use for indicating which tables are hot, when to get out, etc. are laughably obvious. Worst of all, there's a nasty message implicit in the movie. It's OK to treat your best friends badly, lie to your mother and trick people in order to get ahead because, hey, everyone forgives you and it's all good. The very idea that the coveted scholarship to Harvard Medical is basically given to someone who jumps off the page, as opposed to someone of merit, is scary. All I know is, I sure don't want Dr. Ben Campbell doing any surgery on me.

Things to love about this movie: The delightful performance by Aaron Yoo; a terrific soundtrack
Things to hate about this movie: Bad values; that terribly unsubtle signaling at the gambling tables; Kate Bosworth's lousy performance; one of the stupidest endings in recent memory
Pleasant surprises: Can't think of a single one
Unpleasant surprises: Even I was able to guess what the final scene would be while the first scene was taking place (and I'm notoriously bad at guessing anything)