'21' the Movie: It's a Bust

21 was No. 1 at the box office last weekend. Surely this is a sign of the apocalypse

April 1, 2008

By Jake Gosselin
Bodog Nation Contributing Writer

There haven't been too many decent gambling movies to come out recently, so when I first got wind that Hollywood was taking a shot at the bestseller Bringing Down the House, I was pretty excited. When I heard that it opened at No. 1 at the box office with $23.7 million, I grew even more hopeful.

The book is based on a true story about math prodigies from MIT who set up a card counting system that allows them to beat the house in Vegas. The movie, it turned out, was so loosely based on the book that they might as well have just said that it was based on Winnie the Pooh.

It would be far too easy to get carried away on discussing the many ways the movie departed from, and was worse than, the book. Besides, it would have only been surprising if the movie had remained true to it. But I can't let go of the most brutal alteration they made – the title: 21 instead of Bringing Down the House? Really? Here was the first sign that the screenplay adaptors were grade-A douche bags.

Fortunately, some of the cool factors that made Bringing Down the House so popular still managed to shine through despite the douchebaggery.

The opening scene is pretty slick and gets the audience into the story and action right away with a voiceover from the protagonist Ben, played by Jim Sturgess, as he puts on a disguise and takes to the Vegas Blackjack tables in sumptuous slow motion scenes. The thrill of winning comes across so strongly here that you can’t help but get excited about the movie.

21 managed to accurately portray the thrill of winning at the Blackjack table.

And this is where 21 succeeds. It has occasional moments that vacillate between tension and excitement. And for those of us who know how thrilling Blackjack and gambling in general can be, it's nice to see it portrayed decently by Hollywood.

Unfortunately, after the opening scene, it goes downhill pretty steeply after that.

It becomes quickly apparent that what we're seeing falls into the category of what I call "cheeseball filmmaking." These are films that care less about realism than they do about stringing together a series of "cool" moments. Films like The Fast and the Furious and National Treasure fall into this category, so if you liked those steaming piles of turd, you'll like 21.

A prime example of this cheesiness is when our hero, Ben, begins his training with the card counting team led by his MIT math professor played by Kevin Spacey. After the initial Blackjack training montage, Ben is sent to an underground casino where he applies his training and starts winning big at the table. Eventually, he gets attacked from behind in the middle of the casino, a burlap sack is thrown over his head and he's dragged into a back room. Once there, a voice demands what the card count was before he'd been dragged off. Ben, despite being understandably nervous, answers correctly.

Then the bag is removed and, oh golly, it was just his professor and fellow teammates testing him to see if he could keep his head while under pressure.

So the audience is asked to believe that either the whole casino was in on the gag or that everyone just witnessed someone getting dragged off by some goons to be killed. That's always good for business.

There are irksome little things like this in almost every scene. The dialogue is atrocious. Everyone speaks in vaguely witty quips, waiting for their turn to deliver their lines. Spacey's dialogue is a bunch of cool one-liners strung together while the rest of the cast hurls punchy lines as if reading from cue cards, rather than interacting like normal people. Everything is in service to making each scene come across as "slick." Again, I refer you to movies like The Fast and the Furious. If that's the kind of dialogue that gets you going, then pop your Ritalin and grab the next short bus to the theater.

Everyone in this movie is as flat as the cards they count. They have pretty much nothing in terms of internal conflicts or contradictions - except for a contrived conflict between the fading star player, Fisher, and the new wonderboy, Ben. They exist solely to move along the predictable plot. If that's not a movie breaker for you, then maybe you'll like it. Unless, of course, you also happen to think that characters are an important element in a film.

One of the most annoying characters is Choi, played by Aaron Yoo. It's pretty obvious that screenwriters were aware of the lameness of their characters and were looking to add some personality to them. In typical Hollywood fashion, they approached the problem in a very mechanical way. In this case, by picking a random quirk and forcing it onto one of the characters. Choi was assigned the trait of kleptomaniac. You see, he's interesting because he steals things even though he’s making hundreds of thousands of dollars. Wacky, we know.

Kate Bosworth as Jill Taylor was pretty. Pretty awful, that is.

Kate Bosworth, a capable actress in her own right, nearly made me pull my own face off from sheer boredom. Most disappointing of all was her "love scene" with Sturgess. Also, the sheer enormity of her forehead detracted from her overall hotness factor.

It had been reported that Bosworth and Sturgess had been nervous about their naked scene and had therefore chugged enough vodka to become stumbling drunk before shooting it. I thought, "Woo-hoo!," fully expecting to see an uninhibited quasi-porn scene complete with naughty bits galore. I was even willing to overlook her giant forehead for a moment. But, no, the much-anticipated sex scene was a real snore. They kiss and have a naked hug, and then it was over and I didn't even need a cigarette. If you're going to make a movie for the masses, at least get the sex scene right! I wept silently into my popcorn. Disappointment, thy name is Bosworth.

Kevin Spacey did his best to bring some interest to an otherwise predictable film.

It's tragic, too, since the core premise of the movie could have made for an exciting flick. They managed to get a good cast (excellent in Spacey's case) and rights to a great book and then just coasted on director Robert Luketic's ability to make Vegas look slick as hell. Nothing of value was exploited. It could have just as easily been about a prodigious Rock, Paper, Scissors player, or a college kid with amazing tap dance skills. The formula would have fit the same, except that it would've been harder to base it in Vegas.

So if you can't swallow gigantic leaps in logic, an oversimplified premise and paper-thin characters, then you're going to have a hard time enjoying the good moments of 21. If you only care to see Vegas and the high roller lifestyle glamorized, then by all means, hand over your money and your brain. You won't need them where you're going.

TOP PHOTO: Jim Sturgess and Kate Bosworth in the movie 21. (All Images Courtesy of Sony Pictures)