A shoddy script and terrible characterization make 21 barely watchable

Rating: 4/10 (12 August 2008)

Ben (Jim Sturgess) is a math whiz-kid at MIT. He dreams of going to Harvard Med School, has the grades and the acceptance, but has nowhere near enough money to put himself through it. Enter Professor Mickey Rosa (Kevin Spacey), who takes a shining to the kid after a rather brilliant mathematics discussion during a class. As it turns out, Rosa is running a blackjack counting group who goes to Vegas on weekends and make tons of money.
Obviously, we know as an audience that this can lead to no good, but are taken along for the adventure anyway. Unfortunately, the ride does not last very long.
What plagues 21 incessantly is its wanton desire to be a more complicated and intricate movie than it is. Yes, it does deal with a lot of intense mathematical equations, but it never tries asking the audience to answer them. It does give us a rather lengthy montage as to how this team works (using hand gestures and certain words in phrases), and then tells us again when anyone mentions one of these words. It almost gets to the point where the filmmakers begin beating the audience over the head with these simple words (such as "eggs" and "sweet") that we wonder if they had any subtle notions over their subject matter. We see the varying hand gestures multiple times too, but at least they blend in a lot better than a blatant cut to that specific scene in the original montage.
The story itself is a bit of a mess in that it plays out almost frame for frame like any other film with a young person looking to make money the quickest way they can (with an interesting, little-seen twist nevertheless), right down to the supportive mother and neglected friends. And after seeing movies like Martin Scorsese's lengthy epic Casino and the small Canadian film The Last Casino (based off the same material as 21, but somehow ended up being a smoother and more interesting film), you can tell exactly where this film is going to end up by its last frame. Hell, Lawrence Fishburne shows up for less than thirty minutes of screen time, and right after he starts talking, predictability more than just sets in. It gets comfy and makes you feel stupid for even attempting to give this movie a shot.
And because it is so predictable, the movie becomes boring quickly. Seeing the same montages over and over again becomes tedious, and watching these characters move to their eventual ending is almost painful. But the film drags its heels for every minute of its just over two hour run time, and rather than try and attempt to make the film interesting, everything thrown in just makes it more dull and repetitive.
The characters are not much of a help here either. The main character has his motivations for joining the club, but we are never given any sort of indication why any of the other group members are there. Jill (Kate Bosworth) is the supposed sexpot goddess of Ben's dreams, Fisher (Jacob Pitts) is the has been of the group who has a grudge against Ben, and Kianna (Liza Lapira) and Choi (Aaron Yoo) are there simply as glorified seat fillers. Those two do the majority of the hand signaling, and just about nothing else (Choi has a bizarre, albeit useless, subplot where he steals bottles of booze and cheap hotel room pens). Jill and Fisher serve their purposes, and then spend the rest of the movie in a daze, basically going through the motions right up to their character's final moment on screen. I realize this story was based off a book, which in turn was based off a true story, but there has got to have been more to these characters than these simplistic cut outs.
Sturgess, in his first truly lead role (Across the Universe was an ensemble to its very core), is weak as Ben. We can see him struggling to hold the picture together from the start, and he does not get much better as the film goes on. I think it could have been significantly stronger without his continuous narration, but even without it, Sturgess just looks uncomfortable with what he is doing, and almost looks out of place. I can understand that Julie Taymor's uniquely flawed musical opened a lot of doors for him, but this is one he should have either missed entirely, or trained up for a little bit better.
Out of the supporting cast of young people, Bosworth is the only one who really gets a chance to shine, and she does a fairly lousy job of it. As said previously, she plays the supposed sexpot goddess, and she does that. But only, that. She never makes any attempts at giving the character something interesting to do besides watch Ben, and gives even less of a reason for Ben to be so infatuated with her.
Spacey and Fishburne on the other hand, appear to be enjoying themselves as they chew scenery literally limb from limb. This is clearly not their best work, but their roles allow them the space to give their characters a certain finesse and originality that this script clearly made no mention of having. If only they could have rubbed some of their talent off on these young actors, we could have truly had a watchable movie on our hands.
Even with an interesting concept, 21 managed to entertain very little, and frustrate even more. Even with great performances from two seasoned character actors, there is no saving this film from its shoddy acting, and even worse storyline. A solid polish, and less feeling like those that have come before it, could have only made this film worthwhile.
4/10.