21: A Blackjack Movie

Loosely based on Ben Mezrich’s book, “Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions”, the movie 21 takes viewers on a rather improbable (although the story is a true one, in its basic particulars) journey to Las Vegas. With a combination of skill with numbers, an understanding of the odds and outright cheating, half a dozen students and their math professor seek to ‘bring down the house’ and make themselves a few millions in the process.

Not surprisingly, blackjack is the central theme of this movie. Every gambler dreams of a system that will break the bank and make his fortune for him, but these M.I.T. whizzes have cracked just such a system. The reason offered for these students cheating casinos out of millions of dollars is that the protagonist, Ben Campbell (played by Jim Sturgess), just has to go to Harvard Medical School and can’t afford the tuition. He is approached with an offer to join a group of students led by math professor Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey). Rosa is a brilliant statistician and has devised a system for breaking the bank at a casino. Based on counting the cards involved in the game, the system also relies heavily on cheating – the team of student gamblers has a complicated set of signals which help them win enormous amounts of money on their weekend jaunts to Las Vegas. At first, Campbell is reluctant to get in on the action, but his scruples are brushed aside by his desire to go to Harvard and the seductive wiles of Jill Taylor, played by Kate Bosworth. Only Cole Williams stands between these students and millions of dollars.

Unless you’re very interested in blackjack, there isn’t much that this movie offers. Aficionados of the game, though might find 21 interesting. Some of the ways in which the gang wins include using people like the Back-Spotter, who keeps track of the cards even though he is not in the game, and signals the members of his gang to move in and start betting when the house is at a disadvantage, statistically speaking. The Spotter is part of the game and counts the cards, betting low to avoid attracting attention, and calling his teammates in only when the deck is very favorable. The Gorilla bets big, and is led by his spotters to tables where he is likely to win. And then there’s the Big Player, who ‘spots’ successfully but also has as much of a bankroll as a Gorilla, so he wins slowly and steadily.

There is some action and a fair amount of humor, but the film leaves some issues unresolved and fails to follow through on some interesting angles. As far as acting goes, this movie is nothing to write home about. Fishburne is adequate as casino security man Cole Williams, blustery and aggressive, and Bosworth shows flashes of skill, but no one else rises above the mediocre in this frankly, rather avoidable film.

The script of 21 has been written by Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb and the movie is directed by Robert Luketic. The cast of the film consists of Laurence Fishburne as Cole Williams, Aaron Yoo as Choi, Kevin Spacey as Micky Rosa, Jim Sturgess who plays Ben Campbell, Kate Bosworth as Jill Taylor, Liza Lapira as Kianna and Jacob Pitts as Fisher. And the rest of the team includes the producers Dana Brunetti, Kevin Spacey and Michael De Luca; Russell Carpenter, the director of photography, production designer Missy Stewart, editor Elliot Graham, and David Sardy, who has composed the music. A Columbia Pictures release, this movie runs for just over 2 hours.