ARTSETC.
‘21’ film worth counting on
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by Tony Lewis
Monday, March 31, 2008
A truly thrilling film succeeds when it keeps an audience
captivated and hanging on the edge of their seat. Unfortunately, some directors
focus so much on achieving this effect that the thrills not only seem forced
but also overly dramatic, to the point of actually pushing the audience out of
their seats and out the door. Luckily, the overdramatized “21”
manages to pull the audience back into their seats thanks to an enticing story. In creating the film, the writers ended up changing a
majority of the plot and characters in order to produce a movie that has little
relation to the nonfiction novel which the film is supposedly based on,
“Bringing Down the House” by Ben Mezrich. While gutting the
bestseller’s lively characters to fit a Hollywood vision was a bad move, the
plot at least still proves enjoyable. The story begins with Ben Campbell, (Jim Sturgess, “The
Other Boleyn Girl”) a mathematical genius studying at MIT, getting
recruited into a shady blackjack group of equally talented whizzes. The troupe
is led by professor Micky Rosa, excellently played with an unscrupulously
charismatic demeanor by Kevin Spacey (“Superman Returns”). Rosa leads
his team to Las Vegas to use their stunning card-counting abilities to win
millions at the casinos. As if it was not controversial enough that the creators of
“21” decided to have a predominately white cast when almost all the
characters in the novel are Asian American, the writers decided to justify the
removal of these well-established characters by replacing them with a group of
tiresome, flat characters. Besides Micky, Ben is the only character with any depth. He
actually has a back story and some reasoning for why he is involved in this
scheme, which is much more than can be said for the other characters. They
appear only as gray paint specks on the film’s palette and serve only to
distract. While the film does take some time to get going, the story
really starts to heat up as soon as the team makes their first trip to Vegas.
Expert cinematography animates the film by taking advantage of the electric
atmosphere of Vegas’ neon-laden streets and flashy casinos. It always helps when all of the story’s plot threads come
back together at the end. Extra care is taken in the movie to make sure that
threads are not started and then just left behind frayed. The film comes back
to every aspect brought up to create a complete story. And yet, as fantastic as the story and the Vegas scenes are,
“21” proves once again that playing cards is definitely not a
spectator sport. Very few movies seem able to make this activity fun to watch. With his performance, Sturgess demonstrates that he has more
than just a great head of hair. His transformation from a shy nerd to a
money-driven card shark is both believable and entertaining. At the same time,
his chemistry with his professor Rosa is infectious. If only the same thing
could be said about the chemistry between his love-interest and teammate in the
film, Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth, “Superman Returns”). But then again, it would be hard for anyone to start a spark
with the emotionally nauseating Bosworth. When she is not drudging across the
stage with her sort of ho-hum attitude, she is going overboard with her
emotions. She has no acceptable middle ground that the audience can find
enjoyable. Adding to the melodramatic flair of the film is Cole
Williams (Laurence Fishburne, “Bobby”) a nonthreatening casino
security manager determined to keep the card-counters from winning millions in
his casinos. The confrontations between Williams and the MIT team are so
sensational that they become unconvincing, especially when compared to the
accurate nerve-wracking encounters described in Meizner’s novel. “21” is a great example of the pitfalls common
when Hollywood takes a well-written novel and attempts to transform it into an
equally enticing masterpiece on the big screen by adding a heap of drama on
top. Despite the lack of the book’s character-driven thrills, this film is
well-worth the trip to see a creative story, Spacey and Sturgess, and that
alluring Vegas atmosphere. 3 stars out of 5
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