Film ‘21’ deals the
audience a so-so hand

At the Movies
By Senitra Horbrook

If you want to know how to count cards to hit the jackpot in Atlantic City or Las Vegas, don’t see 21 with hopes that it’s a great instructional guide.
The evil genius math professor Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey, playing a great bad guy), who is also leader of MIT’s secret blackjack team, quickly glosses over the detailed code — i.e. numbers are words, words are numbers, folded arms means the table’s hot, running your fingers through your hair means get out now, etc.
I’d really like to read Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions, by Ben Mezrich, because for being inspired by this true story, 21 sure rings false. Although 21 is full of plot holes and illogical scenarios, I do have to admit most of it is pretty interesting.
Surely, the writers (Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb) and director Robert Luketic had to have noticed how contrived the story seemed.
Let’s start with the premise. Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) is a brilliant, nerdy guy at MIT. He’s graduating this year and has already been accepted at Harvard Medical School. Apparently, finances are a problem for him (Harvard Med School is $300,000) and he’s in the running for a full-ride scholarship, but he really needs to wow the judges (the last winner was a Korean with one leg).
I guess Ben has never heard of student loans, but lucky for him, he just happens to find the answers to his money problems in the cards — literally. Professor Rosa — who likes to be known as Micky — has noticed Ben’s mathematics prowess and offers him a spot on a secret team.
Every weekend this team hops on a plane to Vegas, gambles the weekend away and comes home with their pockets a lot fatter. How do they do it? They count cards to make sure they always win at blackjack. It’s not illegal, but it’s not exactly embraced by the casinos.
From what I have heard, plenty of medical students are graduating with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt (and a clear conscience), but I guess (legal) stealing is much more appealing.
After the lessons, which are so full of quick edits the audience can’t really grasp the concept, Micky and the team test Ben to make sure he doesn’t crack under pressure. He doesn’t and it’s "winner, winner chicken dinner."
Supposedly, Ben’s only in it until he gets enough to pay for Harvard. Yeah, sure, that’s what they all say. Well, he wins big and the hands of greed grab him tightly. He lives it up in Vegas, going on shopping sprees with a pretty girl on his arm (Kate Bosworth, who plays a team member named Jill).
Of course, people start getting suspicious. Managing his most menacing sneer, Laurence Fishburne plays a detective for the casinos who desperately needs to prove guys like him are still worthwhile and don’t need to be replaced by face-reading software.
Remember the plot hole problem I mentioned earlier? Here’s another huge one to watch. Ben keeps his money in a really dumb place. It is understandable why a bank account would have been out of the question, but maybe a safe-deposit box would have been a better idea.
All in all, the good balances out the bad in 21. It doesn’t quite bring down the house, but at times it deals a winning hand. ••
Movie Grade: B