There was once a great movie which dramatized playing cards. It was Rounders.
While it’s not necessarily trying to be the exact same film as Rounders, 21 does stray into familiar territory, and it doesn’t do it as well. Based on a true-life story published in the book Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich, the tale of a card-counting team of MIT students seems to have changed drastically from what was on Mezrich’s pages to what happens in 21.
Jim Sturgess (The Other Boleyn Girl) plays the central character of MIT student Ben, while the real man behind the book is former card-counting MIT student Jeff Ma. Both of them, as well as director Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde), discussed the film’s tenuous connection with reality with The Diamondback.
“If I was to tell you a story of something that happened to me five minutes ago, it would be some kind of sensationalized version of the truth. … That’s just the pure nature of storytelling,” Sturgess said.
Ma was able to provide further perspective: “Well, it’s a huge difference. Not huge from my life to the book, but certainly from the book to the movie.”
“We took a lot of dramatic license,” Luketic added.
In Luketic’s version of the truth, hard-working genius Ben Campbell (Sturgess) can’t get his dream scholarship despite perfect credentials because he hasn’t had interesting enough “life experience.” But an experience presents itself when Ben is recruited into the card-counting blackjack team of Professor Rosa (Kevin Spacey, Fred Claus).
And soon enough, the film embarks upon a traditional rise-and-fall formula, really not too different from a rock-star biopic. After Ben gets rich in Vegas, spends lavishly on designer suits and parties too much, things turn for him. He becomes self-centered, abandons his real friends and starts to lose.
But instead of giving us a sobering lesson on the perils of gambling, 21 hits a third-act “restart” button, diluting what appears to be the message of the film in order to end on a feel-good note.
“I don’t think it was ever consciously meant to be a cautionary tale,” Luketic said.
Confusing intentions aside, all could have been forgiven if Peter Steinfield (Be Cool) and Allan Loeb’s (Things We Lost in the Fire) screenplay had been sharper. With better dialogue, 21 could have been a solid picture. Instead, the film is only occasionally funny or effectively dramatic.
The general feeling of mediocrity extends to the performances. Sturgess is a talented actor, but he seems a bit uncomfortable in the first half of the film in his humble good-guy role; he seems much more at home channeling darker emotions. Similarly, Spacey seems oddly flat as the professor who runs the gambling team until he switches into full-on bad-guy mode late in the film. As Luketic said, “No one does villain like Mr. Spacey.”
A better movie is hinted at in the last 20 minutes of 21, when there’s a fun chase right out of an Ocean’s film. If the whole movie had kept such a light touch, it could have been a fun piece of escapist fare – Ma thought so, as he said, “It’s not gonna be a big thought provoker, it’s just gonna be fun entertainment.”
But the film’s pleasant end and beginning sandwich a darker middle section, and 21 isn’t really consistent about what kind of movie it wants to be. As a result 21 isn’t a hit, but it isn’t a bust either.
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RATING: 2.5 STARS OUT OF 5
