Review: 21

2008/PG-13/Drama

21 is the exciting story of six MIT students who live the life many of us wish we could experience: They lead common and, to most, mundane lives during the week, and on the weekends they fly off to Vegas where they fleece the casinos for hundreds of thousands of dollars by playing Blackjack. How do they do it? Their brilliant MIT professor has a practically fool-proof way of counting cards. While this is not illegal, it is very discouraged in Vegas. So much so that if you are caught, you might be counting your teeth at the end of the night to see how many you still have.

While it sounds like something only a seasoned screenwriter could concoct, this film is based on real life. I saw the documentary a few years ago and the movie is surprisingly true to the actual events. Of course, they took some dramatic liberties in an effort to make the conclusion more exciting and, unfortunately, more "American."

You see, we seem to have trouble ingesting a story where the hero doesn't end up on top in the end. And because of that, 21 becomes yet another time when Hollywood falls short of actually saying something meaningful.

We can trace theater's roots back to ancient Greece where the art form was even more part of the culture than movies are today. Theater for the Greeks was an avenue to self-betterment, it was the ancient "self help" section. Their heroes had some tragic flaw that nearly always lead to their demise (hence "Greek Tragedy"). The audience was expected to recognize the flaw and purge it from themselves. Theater was a type of catharsis.

Several times in the past few years, Hollywood has had golden opportunities to follow in the footsteps of their Greek forefathers. And every time they have succumbed to the whims of the "movies-are-only-for-entertainment" Americans and ignored the lesson that ought to be learned from the very story they have told.

The main character's greed drives him to the point where he loses everything. Truth be told, up until the final 2 minutes of the film, I thought that the makers of 21 were finally going to allow their viewers to fully experience a Greek Tragedy. What looked like certain success was going to end in complete failure because of his greed. But no, they wave a little magic wand and rescue him causing him to end the movie rich and me to leave the theater disappointed, yet again.

The technical side of the movie was very good. All of the performances were enjoyable with one notable exception (Aaron Yoo was unnecessary and never made his character very compelling). You can never go wrong with Kevin Spacey who plays the very intense "I'm-your-friend-until-you-screw-up" MIT professor. Jim Sturgess morphs well between the weekday book worm and the weekend high roller. And you can't cast any better villain than Laurence Fishburne. Especially if it's a villain you want people to eventually like. Even the dramatic liberties were well thought out, with the exception of the very end of the film.

Just like The Perfect Storm, 21 forgoes making society better in favor of watering down the ending of their picture.

The ending was so disappointing that even though the rest of the movie was enjoyable, it still only warrants:

2 out of 5 stars