21 (R)

"21" is based on the true story of a group of MIT students who perfected a method of beating blackjack and made a fortune, mostly in Las Vegas casinos. Unfortunately, the movie is given such a Hollywood overhaul that the story, as presented, just seems too far-fetched. Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) is a brilliant MIT student who is trying to get into Harvard Medical School, but is relying on a scholarship because he can't avoid the tuition. He is recruited by one of the professors, Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey) to join the blackjack team, a group of students who spend their weekends hitting Vegas and card-counting for massive profits. This puts Ben on the adventure of his life. The story is interesting and the movie is fun, but it is loaded with cliches: The "fat friend" who eats a box of Twinkies, the math geeks checking out a girl in the bar: "She's an 8" "Nah, she's a 7.649" "I was rounding up", and there are plenty more cliches sprinkled through the movie. Spacey is good, as usual, but even he was not really challenged by the role and it was just classic Spacey, not great Spacey. Another typical Hollywood element: OF COURSE Ben is infatuated with a beautiful girl (Kate Bosworth), OF COURSE she is on the blackjack team and OF COURSE she falls for him when he comes aboard. That also leads to another plot problem: Ben, who is sort of a shy math geek, instantly becomes a "rock star" when he joins the team. It is supposed to illustrate that you can "be whoever you want to be" in Vegas, but the transition is so fast, it is just not believable. There is also a plot twist near the end that just does not make any sense at all. I can't describe why without major spoilers, so I will leave it at that. You might get the impression after all this that I hated this movie. I did not. It was a fun ride, but it takes a true story and makes it into an unbelievable, cliche-ridden film. For a film based on a true story, it misses the mark of realism pretty badly.

Grade: C+

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