21

Review by Loc

Now, I could use a bunch of hokey gambling puns. I could say, “21 hits on a soft-17 only to bust out.” Or maybe I could say, “21 never turns up face cards when it matters.” Hell, I could even get to “If you were playing against 21, you’d be hitting on 12 against the dealer’s ace.” Whatever the case, the end result would be the same. After all the puns, all the jokes, all the fun, it’s simple to boil it all down. Quick hit: 21 sucks.

For gambling movies, Las Vegas capers, card sharks, Hollywood has always had a fascination with the 1-in-a-million longshot story. Maybe it’s one of the quintessential human interest stories of man overcoming the odds, working past his own fallibility, to take down the system designed to suppress him. Ah, the ever-living underdog, ready to strike it rich and stick-it to the “man” at the same time. Sometimes it works, most recently Rounders, which ushered in a new era of poker playing. Other times it doesn’t, and that’s where we sit with 21.

For the two second recap: kid at MIT is itching to go to Harvard Medical School but can’t quite afford the $300k expense. Luckily for him, he’s a numbers genius and Kevin Spacey is his teacher. You see, Kevin Spacey also happens to run a card-counting ring with his naïve students acting as his proxies in Las Vegas showdowns. Cut to the high-life and big winners. Cut more to the big fall, the betrayals, and the lessons learned. Lastly, we await anxiously for redemption and the underdog prevailing.

Or not. Because we don’t actually care about any of the characters in this little morality tale. Number 1, Kevin Spacey is an arrogant prick and totally unlikeable. Number 2, Jim Sturgess plays the main character, Ben Campbell, and he’s an unlikeable, boring, annoying dipwad. He’s almost worse than Cider House Rules Tobey Maguire, and that’s really bad! Number 3, the rest of the card counting crew are cardboard cut-outs. Number 4, Laurence Fishburne is not Morpheus, he’s just fat. Basically, the cast is either boring or worthy of a nutpunch.

The plotting and pacing is “arghh”-inducing as well. First, the anachronisms are not only jarring, they’re annoying. While never specifically stating the date, the film has sold itself as inspired by true-life events from the 1990s. In addition, the main character has a student job getting paid $8/hour. Lastly, the Las Vegas goons are worried about the new face-recognition technology that will make them obsolete. All told, that makes this a period piece. So why do they mention Google? And why do they show current casinos like the Palms or Prince’s symbol on Rio? Why do they worry about airport security that requires post-9/11 measures in place? Why, why, why? Cause this movie is stupid.

Overall, there’s nothing to like in this flick. A quick pointer to the director: just because you film a hand of 21 in super-Matrix-slow-mo and add loud thumps to the card flips doesn’t make it dramatic. It doesn’t make it tense or impressive. It doesn’t make it anything but slow and loud. The characters should mostly be beat to a pulp and the story is boring. Just simply boring. Do yourself a favor, watch Rounders and enjoy how someone can make a Texas Hold’em flop interesting. Out of a winner-winner-chicken-dinner blackjack, 21 can’t even double down with a lowly 9. If this were Wesley Snipes, the flick would have bet on red, because it was too stupid to do anything else.