Stylish "life experience"

Rating: 8/10 (7 January 2009)

***Spoilers ahead***
Many people pinpoint plot holes as if they were very smart, or as if the plot holes were very obvious, and I think they don't realize films need not to be taken too literally. In fact, the obviousness itself can be a signal to the clever viewer, telling her/him that she/he is being presented with a metaphor, a narrative license, an excuse to be stylish, or simply a joke. Why are they going always to the same casino? Because it represents all casinos, and Larry Fishburne is a symbol for all security guards: the filmmakers chose an arena for the struggle, and a character to be the antagonist. Why are their gestures so obvious? In the first place because they are being clearly shown... of course, it's a film. And also because Jill is very, very sexy crossing her arms like that (and we also expect some "glamour" in a film that happens to happen in Las Vegas). If the director had chosen to tell with painstaking detail all the shifts from one casino to another, from one gesture to another, then instead of plot-hole hunters we would have the other kind of people who always complain about films being confusing. Film narrative should be clear. If your attention span is high, then you can entertain yourself catching the tiny little bits of information that the filmmakers let there for us between one scene and the following. And the board discussion about the first and last scene reminds me a similar one about "The Bourne ultimatum". Please! Cinema is a symbolic art. So: those discussions are pointless. Of course they were the same scene, in spite of the obvious differences in clothing, etc., because they were the same at a symbolic level, and that's what counts. The book is just the inspiration for an atmospheric thriller with a sexy bias, which is in fact the kind of film we all love, and "21" is a nice, stylish and well conceived one. If you are interested in the mathematics of BlackJack, or want precise instructions to beat a casino, look elsewhere.