‘21’: Fleecing Las Vegas

(Published June 12, PDI-Entertainment)

By Oliver M. Pulumbarit
Contributor

Fresh-faced and multi-talented Jim Sturgess (“Across the Universe”) stars as a math genius-turned-calculating casino fixture in the pretty mechanical drama “21.”

Some transparent life-game metaphors don’t really equate to anything really mind-blowing in the film, directed by Robert Luketic (“Legally Blonde”), and inspired by the bestseller “Bringing Down the House” by Ben Mezrich.

But it plays some cards right.

Beguiling in some parts and plain puzzling in others, “21” allows Sturgess to exhibit his acting range further, as he plays one of very few characters with solid and faceted personalities in the entire film. There’s narrative clarity, but it clings to a pretty rudimentary structure that gets dull on occasion, too.

It’s easy to appreciate the once-naïve nerd’s gradual cocooning into someone who conquers card tables and a hot woman’s heart, but it’s a belated coming-of-age sojourn we’ve witnessed a few times before. Still, while the story’s far from being exceptionally thrilling, it succeeds in capturing some important nuances.

Shy college student Ben Campbell (Sturgess) discovers that his mathematical expertise can spare him some financial burdens when he’s recruited into a secret club by his charismatic professor Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey). Ben reluctantly joins the small band of cool misfits, but soon finds himself drawn to the idea that he can easily win big money. Blackjack is a “beatable” game, said the professor, so Ben hones his unique aptitude for counting cards. He’s only going to pretend that he’s gambling later.

The motley crew of casino raiders train for this complex and covert endeavor, but the visualization and execution of this process is quite confusing on our end. A montage of scenes depicting numbers and code words become flashy gobbledygook, comprehensible only to that small circle of brainiacs.

So the tricks are math whiz-exclusive and you’ll pick up the gist later in succeeding scenarios. As a viewer, though, you’d still feel left out.

Ben and Micky have an involving protégé-mentor dynamic; their somewhat similar mindsets and conflicting personalities keep shared and separate scenes intense. But while Sturgess and Spacey are given lots to do and layers to explore, the other characters are just flat and underdeveloped.

Laurence Fishburne as a casino’s gruff security head is a tad entertaining but too caricaturish. Kate Bosworth looks doll-like, but her beauty-and-brains persona lacks a hook. And the rest of the nerds, well, they’re just non-entities.