want to take a gamble? this movie STINKS!

Rating: 4/10 (2 April 2008)

Robert Luketic, director of 21, doesn't have as his major folly to change the characters from the book (which I have not read but heard a bit about) from an all Asian group of card counters in Las Vegas to a more 'mixed' lot (i.e. about 1/4 are Asian now). Nor is it even his casting of his lead actor (Jim Sturgess probably brings more charm to the two-dimensional part than one would've thought was possible). His biggest folly was not questioning as he went through the motions of making a silly, contrived, hyper-slick-music-video-shot-in-Jiminy-Jilikers-High-def if there was anything to change up on an audience who knows such motions through and through. The only thing that might differentiate this movie from a whole host of smart-guy-in-a-new-dirty-pond flicks (and I can't name them all but the likes of Rounders is a masterpiece compared to this) is that the characters turn into models from GQ and Maxim by the time they hit it big in Vegas. Not expecting much from 21 is just about right, or even worse.
And don't get me started on Laurence Fishburne and Kevin Spacey. It's a paycheck day once again for these two very good- sometimes even fabulous- thespians, who slum their roles as a would-be-DeNiro-in-Casino and a shady MIT professor who by the looks of the movie should be characterized as team-leader-Satan respectively. They too understand what is going on in 21, which is an ol' fish-out-of-water fable about smart people doing stupid things with lots of money at stake as an MIT kid (Srugess) with aspirations for Harvard med joins a group that goes to Vegas and stakes out hundreds of thousands per weekend by counting cards and hustling from table to table. I guess, in a way, I don't blame them for not doing much at all with their roles. But one would hope that there would be something, ANYTHING, that would make this as something for them to distinguish, that the director &/or the script would give them something to do aside from filling in pat performances from at least a good few other parts they've played.
As mentioned, Sturgess at least brings a little bit of interest to a character carved out of some sympathy as kid who gets in way over his head. There's not much else with supporting players either. Kate Bosworth is the kind of actress whom you think can sort of act, or at least knows how to *pretend* to really act. But there's also something just not there clicking, something when she puts on the 'concerned' face that just screams so bland that you can't even take it. The writers also plug in clichés of yester-year (and not long enough): Jacob Pitts as the snotty side character in the group who is just too jealous and stubborn to stay in the group long once Benn arrives; the old nerdy friends from before Ben's trip into blackjack land, who are there as a function and not as any real character 'base'. And then there is the script in and of itself- giving us such forlorn twists and turns in its final reels that I want to choke on my popcorn- and the direction as well, which pumps up the volume for the kids while making sure to completely sanitize a real Vegas experience for college-aged younguns (and, of course, the shallowest of all, the two hot male and female leads have to hook up, without much connection whatsoever).
Maybe you could give it a couple of quick peeks, maybe five minutes, when it's on TNT in a couple of years. But as far as giving any substantial money to this enterprise? The house wins, Johnny, that's the way it is.