Review: 21

21 opened number one at the box-office this weekend, so several people probably saw it. I was one of those people. Bottom line is the movie is a predictable fair, but worth your time.

The story is based on the MIT blackjack team chronicled in Bringing Down the House (the book not the white-people-and-black-people-are-comically-different Steve Martin/Queen Latifa[h?] movie). The story starts out with some kid (I forget his name) who is a nerd with nerdier friends. He is portrayed as the smartest in every class, is working on building robots, and appears to have never talked to a girl save his mom. Well, he's been accepted into Harvard Medical school, but needs the lots of money they charge. Enter his proffesor Kevin Spacey who invites him to join the blackjack team, which happens to have the girl of his dreams on it. After some apprehension he joins in order to gain the $300,000 he needs for school. He is then having the time of his life in Vegas, making money and getting close to his dream girl. In typical fare this leads to him ignoring his nerdier friends and then leads him to change and become cocky. Well his house of cards soon comes tumbling down, but he comes out in the end. Yadda yadda yadda.



While still being formulaic guy is loser becomes accepted rises gets the girl ignores friends changes crashes down learns lesson and then fixes everything coming out on top, it is not as painful as most. The break up with his nerd friends, his change in attitude, and his humility in apologizing later are handled better and more realistically compared to past scenes in similarlly structured films. Though that being said two decisions by characters practicully scream "PLOT DEVICE!" at the audience, but both are necessary for the film to work and are just the result of lazy writing. Kevin Spacey is his typical greastest-actor-alive self. Of course it's not like this role really challenges him and even when he turns evil (he's Kevin Spacey he has to change after there is twenty minutes left in the film; he either turns evil or grows a spine or turns out not to be an alien or something) there isn't much material for him to shine, but still he's good. In fact every actor turns a good fair from the main to the supporting (even the nerdier friends barely go over the top in their nerdom performances). The only when who didn't shine was Lawrence Fishburne. Not to say he was bad, but he didn't stand out. You could pretty much forget he was in the movie at all despite being the main antagonist for most of it.

Now I hadn't read the book, but I saw a history channel program detailing the events. While keeping the same premise it takes out the more realistic ideas of the team eventually failing, ruining the member's lives, and forcing the professor in charge going to Europe to countcards after being black barred from all American gambling establishments. Naturally the movie adds more of a plot and ends it on a brighter note. So it's a good popcorn flick. Again you could guess what's going to happen at every turn, but it's done well and I'd recommend it if you got nothing better to see.

Rating: 6/10