Making the argument that risk-taking and risk management in the game of blackjack is much like how one plays the game of life, rom-com director Robert Luketic jazzes this popcorn number with a flashy template, benefits from Hollywood’s alluring fountain of youth and with an authentic backdrop of a city that seduces for all of its advertised vices, unfortunately this mathematical conquest of a place where the house is usually declared victor way before the first card is dealt hardly makes a dent among the pack of previous films that deal with gambling, easy wealth or the big con. 21 might be more of a turn on for youth-orientated demographics, but for mainstream audiences this is a by-the-rules, lamely executed, flat character study that tells us nothing new on addiction and the accompanying withdrawal symptoms.
Co-scripted by Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb, and based on the real life story of MIT students who beat the by using an ingenious counting cards system as told by Ben Mezrich in his tell all tale, the film brings the rags to riches narrative into upper white class, prosperous setting exaggerating the film’s protagonists’ Bambi image. The formulaic narrative features the golden boy (Jim Sturgess) who can’t pay a six-figure school tuition by flipping burgers, but has a Pentium chip mind to compensate, accidentally joins an all-star team and forgets his former life and nerdy friends in the process and embraces the possibility of getting laid. Multiple antagonists make sure that the winning streak either comes to a halt or continues. Kevin Spacey offers much of what we like of him from former roles – here he plays the mentor who is there to explain the rules of the game with panache while Kate Bosworth is the film’s eye and arm candy.
For those not paying attention, this is a film about the big play/payout and like its Ocean 11-12-13 cousins before it, the carpet pull is predictable and comes across like a big distraction instead of a potentially more truthful sobering note. With the sort of Hollywood treatment that assures that the good guy is left unscathed – rewarded with a life lesson taught with safety-landing gear fully deployed.
Excess is the route of all woes and not knowing when to stop is where the big mystery lies and 21 comes across like a film that doesn’t benefit from the material that it is before it. For the sake of entertainment, Luketic checkmarks a list of underdog’s rise and fall run of the mill motions, that unfortunately could have gone into gray, darker, less predictable zones of the big seduction.