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By the numbers

Coming of age at the blackjack tables
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June 4th, 2008 issue

By Rachel Shimp

Too cool for school: M.I.T. whiz (Bosworth) by day, card-counter by night.
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21


Directed by Robert Luketic
With Kevin Spacey, Jim Sturgess, Kate Bosworth and Laurence Fishburne
For the Post
Is the Las Vegas tourism board really pushing it this summer, or what? At least this slight, enjoyable movie starring Jim Sturgess (Jude in Across the Universe) puts the gambling Mecca’s materialistic splendor in full view. Unlike the recently released comedy What Happens in Vegas…, it also makes the place look appealing.  
It would appeal to you, too, if you were a math genius who suddenly learned of an insanely profitable application for statistics. Otherwise, blame the understated camera work and use of (what looks like) natural light in 21. The endless glitz of the strip looks purposely dialed down. But the melodrama is played way up in this adaptation of Ben Mezrich’s 2003 book Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions. It was played up in the original story, too. Mezrich recently admitted that only one of the book’s main characters — played here by Sturgess as Ben Campbell — was based on an actual person.
What seems to be true is that a former M.I.T. instructor organized an underground school blackjack team, which spent weekends in Vegas beating the dealers by counting cards. But the details are blurry, as are Ben’s eyes after sitting at a blackjack table until dawn. So Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde)’s film is free to become anything or anyone it wants to be, and alternates between cautionary tale and coming-of-age story, with a bit of brass-knuckle-induced suspense mixed in.
When Ben is first introduced, he’s a hot nerd about to graduate from M.I.T., selling $1,000 suits to rich old men and hoping to use the commission to pay for Harvard Medical School. Every step he’s made in his academic career is the right one, money being the only obstacle. He’s such a good kid that his mom has to tell him not to come home before 3 a.m. on his birthday. His cake has a Fibonacci sequence, instead of candles, showing his age. Sturgess’ easygoing charm is perfect for the role. He looks and acts exactly 21, especially when his crush Jill (Kate Bosworth, someone give her a donut please) is around.
After an excitable professor notices Campbell’s mathematical prowess, he uses Jill to convince Ben to join the blackjack team. It consists of whiz kids Jill, Choi (Aaron Yoo), Kianna (Liza Lapira) and Jimmy Fisher (Jacob Pitts). The excitable professor is Micky Rosa, whom Kevin Spacey plays as a perfect bastard. He’s good at that.
Their first meeting in a private room of the campus turns the film on a more formulaic dime — now everyone is acting way cooler, smoother and older than 21. Maybe they’re jaded by the hundreds of thousands of dollars they’ve already made on weekend jaunts to Sin City, though, more likely it’s the work of a screenwriter pandering to what’s surely a mostly teenage audience.
I once read a review of the coming-of-age classic Pretty in Pink that opined that the only person in the movie worth sleeping with was James Spader’s character, the drunkenly insolent Steph. Not the eccentric Duckie, or the cute-but-dumb preppie Blaine. It’s the same in 21, where Fisher channels James Spader with all his might. He’s the top better and Ben is called in to be his second. The rest of the team are spotters, keeping an eye on the card count and signaling when it’s time to make a move, or bail. Oh, and the women aren’t allowed to be betters because, as Rosa says, “I don’t trust the girls.” Not even ones smart enough to go to M.I.T.? The implication that women are too emotional to be good game players is absurd.
It’s easy to care about Ben and what happens to him once he gets caught up in the scheme. Soon enough, a casino honcho (Laurence Fishburne) whose job is scheduled to be replaced by face-recognition software is after the group. And no wonder, since they keep taking the same casino to the cleaners.
Aside from the truly unnecessary sexism and the too-quick jokes that people pull from their hats, the script offers plenty of platitudes on winning and losing. We’ve all heard, “It’s always best to go out when you’re on top,” but maybe not “Yesterday’s history, tomorrow is a mystery. You got to make it do what it do in the moment, baby.”
You can bet on that.
Rachel Shimp can be reached at rshimp@praguepost.com


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