21

"21" is the fact-based story about six MIT students who were trained to become experts in card counting and subsequently took Vegas casinos for millions in winnings.

Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) is an MIT student who – needing to pay school tuition – finds answers in counting cards. As a superior math and statistics student, he is recruited to join a group of mathematically-gifted students that heads to Las Vegas every weekend with fake identities and the know-how to turn the odds at blackjack in their favor. Unorthodox math professor Mickey Rosa (Kevin Spacey) leads the way. By counting cards and employing an intricate system of signals, the team can beat the casinos. Drawn by the money, the Vegas lifestyle, and his teammate, Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth), Ben begins to push the limits. Though counting cards isn’t illegal, the stakes are high, and the challenge becomes not only keeping the numbers straight, but staying one step ahead of the casino’s menacing enforcer, Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne). The genius here is in a breezy tour of a system for beating blackjack, created by a (very) extracurricular MIT club. Through a combination of math, code words and the magic of oversimplification, 21 makes you feel like you, too, could beat the house.

Of course, nothing's ever that easy, nor is it as much fun as it looks. And that's the problem with 21, a film that's great with abstract theories but ignores the ugly truths about its characters—which is to say, there really aren't any, just contrived motivations papered over with amiable, attractive young actors. (Well, and Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburne, who are older, therefore dour and mean.)

The trouble starts right off the bat, when protagonist Ben gets a superfluous rationale for joining the blackjack team—he needs $300,000 for med school, and he needs it because apparently we wouldn't believe that he just wants it. In giving us someone to root for, 21 takes away someone that might hold our interest; it's this zero-sum storytelling that makes it impossible to take the proceedings seriously.

Fans of Bringing down the House, the best-seller that inspired this movie, might well walk out wondering what went wrong. How often is a nonfiction Hollywood adaptation less lurid and exciting than its source? Director Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde, Monster-in-Law) doubles down on the book's glitz but leaves out all of the grit, trading scenes of real panic and menace for corny backroom confrontations with zero scare factors. As an adaptation, it's a disappointment. As Hollywood fare, it's a bust.