MOVIE REVIEW: 21

21

Six Cows

Just because you know where the train is going doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the ride. So it is with 21, starring Jim Sturgess as Ben Campbell, a brilliant but shy MIT student, and the ever-able Kevin Spacey as Micky Rosa, his mathematics professor. Brilliant and exceedingly likable, Campbell is desperate to find tuition money for his life’s dream, Harvard Medical School, when he catches the eye of Professor Rosa.

Rosa’s interests are anything but academic; he’s developed a system based on Newtonian mathmatics that turns the odds in Blackjack against the house. Armed with this system and a team of MIT’s brightest students, Rosa leads weekly trips to plunder Vegas. At first reticent, Campbell finally succumbs and joins the team. What were the odds of that?

As a morality tale 21 is only half successful. Sure, the corrupting influence of money is on full display – witness the subtle hellfire at the entrance of one casino -- but even at his worst Campbell is still pretty likable. And though it all comes to naught, as we knew it had to, it still looks like a tremendously fun ride, culminating in a “life experience” angle that is a direct rip-off of 1983’s Risky Business.

But we don’t go to the movies for moral enlightenment; at least I pray we don’t. We go to the movies for entertainment, and as entertainment 21 does just fine. Some might find it a bit long at a touch over two hours, but the time is put to good use for a narritive device seldom seen in big-budget films these day – character development. Ben Campbell is fleshed out nicely by Sturgess, and the lesser characters are well-cast. Kate Bosworth and Lawrence Fishburn are good and excellent, respectively, but perhaps the best of the supporting cast are Josh Gad and Sam Golzari as nerdy friends Miles and Cam. Expect to see Gad again. He has a natural presence and talent.

The script is well-paced, and screenwriters Allan Loeb and Peter Steinfeld keep the geek-speak accessible yet not dumbed down for us meer mortals. While rated PG-13, an unfortunately gratuituous strip-club scene will likely make it inappropriate for many parents, if the gambling angle doesn’t already. That’s a shame, because it’s an enjoyble, fun movie, complete with an obvious but still relevant moral. As Ben Campbell would say, “Winner, winner, chicken dinner!”