Posted: 03/14/2008

21

(2008)

by Nathan Baker-Lutz

Check all that apply:

• __ $9 to spare
• __ crush on Kate Bosworth
• __ interest in Blackjack
• __ 2 hours to kill.

If you marked at least three of the four, 21 is for you. Directed by Robert Luketic and set for release April 28th, 21 follows five students from M.I.T. and smooth operating professor Micky Rosa, played by Kevin Spacey, as they crash the Vegas scene and cash in counting cards.

Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe) leads a large cast as Ben Campbell. He’s a poor M.I.T. student, struggling to find a $300,000 payday for Harvard Medical School. Of course, Ben is conveniently dashing and witty. Professor Rosa takes notice to Ben’s intelligence, which stands out even at M.I.T., and quickly pursues him for extracurricular activities.

Ben is introduced to a world of counting cards and weekend trips to Vegas, along with the tempting Jill Taylor (Bosworth) and a trio of other students, and soon enough becomes caught up in the glitz and glamour of the Vegas strip, not to mention earning thousands of dollars on a single Saturday night.

21 is not a standout, must-see film, but don’t let me undersell it. I left my screening wondering if I had gone because I wanted to see 21, or gone because I wanted to see a free movie. I am even now afraid I am full of indecisive remarks and haphazard opinions. It was a fun movie, but I won’t buy the DVD. I wanted to see if it would end how I thought it would, but wasn’t shocked when it did. That’s just the kind of movie it was: holding an ace, but still soft.

The film is an adaptation of the book Bringing Down the House, which tells the story Jeff Ma and five other real M.I.T. students. Sturgess plays Ma and does an adequate job. I haven’t read the book, but Ma and Sturgess attended my screening and fielded a few questions. It quickly became apparent that the usual creative liberties that any writer must take during adaptation were abundant. Every time someone asked a question about the story, Ma admitted it didn’t happen. There was no crush, Spacey’s character wasn’t actually a professor, and there are a multitude of other “interpretations” that qualify as spoilers.

I will always understand the novel-to-film constraints, but Luketic and his writers take it to a whole new level. They go from “inspired by a true story” to “something that may have happened to someone we know. Probably.” No one’s acting was distracting, the music wasn’t sensational, and the worlds the movie inhabited were typical Vegas and typical Ivy League. Maybe if I gambled more or found Kate Bosworth more attractive…

Nathan Baker-Lutz is a writer and film critic living in Chicago.

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