Sunday, March 30, 2008
A+E, Movies, Reviews

House of cards

Despite strong start, ‘21’ doesn’t pay off

CREDIT: Courtesy of Sony/Columbia Pictures
Jim Sturgess stars in “21.”

“21”
Jim Sturgess, Kate Bosworth
Directed by Robert Luketic
Rated PG-13
Wide release
By Steve Warren

The card-counting caper “21” offers proof, if any were needed, that if you’re going to set a movie in Las Vegas and put a number in the title, that title had better start with “Ocean’s.”

Actually, about half of “21” takes place in Boston, where Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess of “Across the Universe,” a likable leading man) is a senior at M.I.T. with hopes of going to Harvard Medical School. All he needs is $300,000 or a full scholarship. Working at a menswear store for $8 an hour should earn him enough by the time he reaches retirement age.

But Ben is smart—genius, maybe. He even impresses Professor Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey) with knowledge that shows he’s perfect for Micky’s card-counting scheme. It seems Micky takes five students to Vegas every weekend to clean up at the blackjack tables. (The title refers to that game as well as Ben’s age.) There’s an opening on the team since, since one of Micky’s regulars got a job with Google. The idea doesn’t appeal to Ben at first, but one of the team members—Jill (Kate Bosworth)—does. Before you can say “Hit me,” he’s in.

You don’t have to understand how the card-counting is done (Micky offers a hasty explanation) to follow the action. You only have to know it works, if one obeys Micky’s rules, and that it can be quite lucrative. It’s not technically illegal, but losing casinos frown on the practice, and hire people like security consultant Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne) to discourage it—by any means necessary.

Some details don’t make much sense. Although there’s talk of changing identities and appearances, not much of that goes on. The students risk exposure by playing at the same tables in the same hotel (probably more for reasons of logistics and product placement than adhering to the facts of this true-ish story). And Ben usually joins Kianna (Liza Lapira) at her table, but they always pretend to be strangers. In reality, the dealers would get wise long before security does.

While not always believable, “21” is reliably fun for more than an hour, when things are going good. Ben develops a new, more extroverted Vegas persona, which alternates with his M.I.T. persona when he’s back home. He quits his job and neglects his nerdy friends, Miles (Josh Gad) and Cam (Sam Golzari), with whom he’s been working on a project for a science competition for more than a year. And, yes, he finally scores with Jill.

Of course, things have to go wrong—otherwise there’d be no drama—but the fun doesn’t have to go out of the movie the way it does here. Fisher (Jacob Pitts), the team’s former top dog, gets jealous of Ben’s success. Micky gets nasty (and you know Spacey can be a bitch), and Cole gets violent. Twist after twist after twist ensues, while credibility goes out the window and the movie’s entire tone changes for the worse. There’s some excitement, but it’s marred by too much unpleasantness.

Director Robert Luketic (“Monster-in-Law”) keeps things moving, coated with the requisite Vegas glitz. But he allows too hard a fall from the initial high, even if he brings things back up toward the end.

“21” was adapted from Ben Mezrich’s “Bringing down the House,” which already fictionalized events considerably. The book took place in 1993, but here the action’s been updated to 2007 (Celine Dion’s name on a marquee dates the film). With Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb’s screenplay deviating further from the facts, what’s left is probably 99 percent pure Hollywood fantasy, which makes its dark side that much less excusable. 2.5 STARS