Could bring down to less than 100 minutes

Rating: Null/10 (24 June 2008)

The length of a movie doesn't matter if it's a good one like the 6-hour "La meglio gioventu" ("The best of youth" 2003). But when it's a borderline case, having its length trimmed down to the double-digit range helps to earn viewers' goodwill.
Based on the true story of a group of MIT students taking the Vegas casinos to the cleaner with their sure-win system in black jack, this movie starts almost like a documentary, but soon wanders into the realm of melodrama and even near-fairy-tale. The fictionizing is not a problem as this is after all just a movie. The problem is the fundamental premise of using mathematical principals to devise a system for the black jack table. I don't know how many in the audience are math majors but that isn't even relevant. With just a layman's appreciation of the beauty of math, I was intrigued when I watched movies like "A beautiful mind", "Goodwill Hunting" and "Proof", not because I understand the math but because of the skillful presentation by the scriptwriter and director. Whatever they do with math and black jack in this movie simply doesn't work for me, perhaps because the math is too complicated and the game is too simple.
Nor is the "adventure" in Vegas terribly exciting. Through the middle section of the movie, scenes keep cutting back and forth between Boston and Vegas, when we see the students alternate between bicycle-and-hamburger and a high-roller existence. It was fun for a little while but soon starts to drag. The repetition soon makes the game table routine and hand signals somewhat tedious. The story itself, as mentioned, is melodramatic, and also predictable - "twists" you have seen so often that they cease being twists.
It wouldn't be fair if I fail to balance the negative with things positive. This movie can almost be seen an a biopic of the lead student Ben Campbell, and I like Jim Sturgess's ("Across the Universe", "The other Boleyn girl") performance. I consider him the best of the three fast-rising young actors, although I also like the other two  James McAvoy ("The last king of Scotland", "Becoming Jane", "Atonement" and now "Wanted") and Shia LaBeouf ("Bobby", "Transformers", "Indiana Jones 4").
In "Penelope", Reese Witherspoon, one of the producers, takes a supporting acting role. Kevin Spacey, a producer of this movie, does something similar, but it's a more important role, as the professor who trains the team. Spacey is always good to watch but in this movie, his role is not well written, as it degenerates from an all-business mastermind into a regular villain. Acting opposite Spacey's Bobby Darin in "Beyond the sea" was Kate Bosworth as Sandra Dee, but she is probably better remembered as Lois Lane in the more recent "Superman returns". Her role in this movie as the member of the group who entices Ben to join (and later becoming his girlfriend) is somewhat bland but she discharge admirably her responsibility in the movie of looking pretty.
There are quite a few other supporting roles: Lawrence Fishburne (a bit wasted) as the casino goon and a number of MIT students (other members of the team as well as Ben's buddies who get neglected). Josh Gad as Ben's neglected best friend is good; so are the two Asian actors playing members of the heist team  Aaron Yoo and Liza Lapira.