Superficially slick but lacking in substance, making it never more than "OK"

Rating: Null/10 (28 July 2008)

Ben Campbell is a gifted maths student with dreams of getting into the best university and getting out of his humble Boston roots. The reality is that talent may not be enough and that the costs may be prohibitive. Regardless of his future plans, Ben's maths professor sees other potential and invites him to join a very unusual after-school activity  practising counting cards to beat the odds at the Blackjack table. Why? Well because Professor Rosa's group spends their weekends under assumed identities taking the casino's for tens of thousands of dollars a time. It all seems so simple but is Ben just naive to the risks?
One can easily understand what it was about the story that appealed to the makers because, to coin a phrase "it's Vegas baby!" - the city of women, lights, money, gambling and shows. Hey, if nothing else we have scope of loads of cool slow-mo shots of people walking in casinos, quick-cuts of cards and chips and so on - after all people watch poker etc all the time on TV shows so it is an easy sell. And so what we get in this film is lots of sweeping shots and glamorous locations, none of which ever make you forget that what we're talking about here is maths students using their skills to beat the odds and win money. The only outcome of getting caught appears to be a severe beat from Lawrence Fishburne and being sent on your way with whatever you got before being caught.
And that is really the problem that I had with the film is that it didn't have a great deal to offer in the delivery to convince me that I should be interested in it. The true story is enough to make me watch but somehow it doesn't translate into a gripping narrative. The risks aren't all that tangible whereas the earnings are significant to the point where it seems a no-brainer. With this element stuttering the film really could have done with stronger characters to make for a good tale but, as it is, Campbell is a fairly dull subject whose changes are obvious and not that interesting. This just leaves lots of a card games but even without the card counting, blackjack doesn't lend itself to tension and mind-games in the same cinematic way that poker does (and even that is not done that well that often). So the film pushes the easy stuff and loads it up with the visual style that CSI, Oceans Eleven etc have conditioned us to associate with Vegas-set stories.
The end result of that is that these scenes do have a bit of pace and energy to them but as soon as this goes away, there is almost nothing of interest to focus on. I was surprised by just how so-so much of the film was and it is hard to ignore that the weakness comes from the lack of substance for the viewer to get into. In the lead Sturgess does OK because his performance feels natural enough and I assumed that with a better script and clearer direction he could have engaged the audience more; as it was his was a case of nice but bland. Spacey does his usual turn and is a good presence but not much more. Fishburne is more realistic than the Ocean's Eleven style casino bosses/heavies but he also comes over a bit toothless at the same time and not that much of a force in the film. Bosworth is a cool love interest though, genuinely cute and works well with her fellow actors even if it must have been tough to generate chemistry with them within the film. Support from the remainder of the group is OK even if their characters are basic.
21 is an occasionally slick and cool film based on a true story but it puts all its chips on the stylish and swish Vegas delivery and forgets to spread its bets by working on character, narrative and engaging the audience in more solid ways. This means that at times it feels fresh and cool but ultimately the minute you have to look deeper you find there is surprisingly little to work with. It is still "OK" but never consistently more than that.