Director: Robert Luketic
Cast: Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Bosworth
Running Time: 123 mins
Rating: 2/5
The latest from director Robert Luketic, the film 21 is a sad, sad failure. Famed for over-the-top, pink and frilly movies like Legally Blond, this time around, Luketic has made a 'guy' movie, but unfortunately, has also failed miserably. What could've been an intelligent adventure, full of high stakes card games and protagonists with above-average IQs, has been turned into a filmsy piece of Hollywood fluff with one-dimensional characters, wooden acting and a barely-there plot.
Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) is a student at MIT and a math genius like everybody else there. Desperate to go to Harvard Medical School, he lacks the funds to finance his further education. An admissions officer from Harvard tells him that his essay must be dazzling for him to win a scholarship. Otherwise, fork over the $300,000 (!).
And here's Mickey Rosa's cue to enter. Maths professor Rosa (Kevin Spacey) introduces Campbell to the joys, and perks, of gambling. Using their superior brains, Rosa and a few of his students play the Blackjack table at Las Vegas, counting cards to predict what comes next. Campbell joins five other similarly endowed geniuses to take on the glittery world of Vegas. The team uses an elaborate system of card counting, hand gestures and code words. Little do they know that they are being watched by Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne), a security guard, bent on catching card-counters. And so begins, Campbell's journey into the adult world of gambling, getting caught and learning a lesson to never do it again.
Gambling is an exciting pastime. The dice, the cards and all the moolah make for a thrilling time but director Luketic instead chooses to focus on the story behind Campbell. Sturgess, minus his Liverpool accent from Across the Universe, plays Campbell. Kevin Spacey is not as perfect as he was in his prime, but still solid while Laurence Fishburne just makes a sad villain. Even the romance between Campbell and Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth) seems too contrived. With no chemistry between the two, watching them together onscreen is a pain.
The film, based on the true adventures of the MIT Blackjack team takes too many liberties, first being the all-white cast with two token Asians thrown in for the heck of it, whereas the actual team consisted of Asian-Americans. The character of Ben Campbell is based on Jeff Ma, the leader of the MIT team and very much a real person (he makes a cameo as one of the blackjack dealers). Why Luketic has chosen to Americanise the cast escapes me. Is it because a film with an Asian in the lead would sell less DVDs, or would Americans not go to theatres to see such a film?
21 is not even an average film. It is flimsy with its plot, superficial with its characters and provides no surprises whatsoever. You'd kind of expect that a film about gambling would be exciting, thrilling and would pull a few sleight-of-hand tricks, but unfortunately, 21 disappoints even there.
