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 The heist
film. Moviegoers have had a mad love affair with films that depict
robbing from the rich to give to ... whoever the hero may be: John “The
Cat” Robie, Mr. White, Butch Cassidy and/or the Sundance Kid, Henry
Holland, Bonnie and Clyde, Gondorf and Hooker, and so forth. Recently
the prospects of Danny Ocean made over from a 1960’s Sinatra model to a
George Clooney replacement in 2001 have caught the imagination of movie
audiences. The slick, sexy trio of caper films brought a freewheeling
fun and glamour to the screen and seemed to be most at home when set
amidst the glitz and glare of Las Vegas neon.
21 is a heist film of a slightly different stripe,
there are no vaults being broken into, but money changes hands in
less-than-upstanding ways. Like Ocean’s 11, the action is set in the
heart of the Vegas strip, but the setup takes place far away in the
classrooms of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT for
those with less time. Ben Campbell is
a hard-working middle-class boy with a head full of
smarts and yen to get into Harvard Medical. Ben’s trouble is that the
tuition for Harvard medical is an astronomical sum and decades of
working at his 8-dollar-an-hour job at the local haberdashery won’t spot
him that kind of dough. Still, Ben is noticeably bright, so much so that
a math professor Micky Rosa, takes Ben into his confidence and
introduces him to a college club not offered on any university brochure.
Professor Rosa has accumulated the sharpest minds in the school for some
lucrative field trips. Spotting cash for plane fare and hotel, Professor
Rosa herds his bright young things into the fields of the Vegas Strip
for a practical math lesson. The students count cards, making the
quickest minds infallible at the game of Blackjack, or “21” (- aha!).
The students go out as a team, and by use of hidden gestures and secret
buzzwords help each other to vulgar scads of dosh every weekend. Any
residual hangovers or lack of presence in other classes is also fixed by
the helpful Professor Rosa. Ben, being a good boy, hedges for a good
minute before his Achilles Heel is hit in the form of lovely classmate,
Jill Taylor, who is one of Rosa’s Angels and breathily convinces Ben to
come along. Ben shines in their initial outings, raking in bushels of
cabbage for the entire group to share (- minus the 50% in the
Professor’s pocket) and the team is in their glory. Harvard suddenly
doesn’t look so far away as Ben piles wads of cash in the hollow ceiling
boards of his dorm (- ?!). After a rocky start (- and a few
tailored Italian suits), things get chugging between himself and
Jill. Ben even abandons his old bike for a car and driver. That’s not
the only thing he sets on the curb, Ben leaves in the dust of his old
poverty his old MIT geekmates. The field trips to Vegas and nuzzling
Jill have taken up his time and it causes resentment with his old pals
who know nothing about his double life as a cardsharp. Ben also has to
deal with the resentment of a fellow teammate who is jealous of Ben’s
proficiency and somehow can’t be consoled with all the money he’s now
making because of his rival. Add to all this a crafty casino security
man who catches on to the little team despite their disguises and a
betrayal at the lowest level, and Ben’s life becomes all sorts of
complicated.
21 plays very much like a sort of Ocean’s 11 for
the teenybop set. While the explanation of the actual card counting
crossed my eyes (- even as a young pachyderm math was always my worst
subject), it really didn’t matter because all you were really
supposed to see was the adorable, sweet Ben and his sexy slide from
poor-but-honest hardworking guy to debauched, avaricious cheater. It’s
not that big a slide, really - the most sordid the team gets is going en
masse to a strip club where the dancers keep their clothes on - and one
can’t blame Ben for enjoying the fruits of his brainy labours. It’s all
pretty fluffy and innocent and the changes in Ben are barely cosmetic,
so there’s no big lesson here – except maybe to run much faster when you
see security coming.
Jim Sturgess is very winning as Ben (- NPI, I
think). He has the fresh-faced quality of innocence that makes the
prospect of luring his character into temptation so much fun. He handles
the training scenes with lighting fast equations flying at his head with
believable aplomb. He is utterly endearing in his scenes with the much
faster article, Jill. Ben is out of his league and he knows it, but he’s
hanging in there and can’t help but win the girl. It also helps that
Sturgess doesn’t look too shabby in those suits, either. Another thing
Sturgess manages really well is not getting blown away off the screen by
Kevin Spacey as Professor Rosa. I loved watching Spacey finally back on
screen in a role that befits his amazing timing and droll delivery. When
he disappears for almost a third of the film, the movie suffers and
rises back to form when he reappears as a Village Person … or a cowboy,
I’m not sure. When Rosa sends a student to bring Ben down into the
basement classroom where the blackjack team meets he’s led down the
darkened hallways like Alice down the rabbit hole, or like Neo in the
early scenes of The Matrix. So nice then to see Morpheus himself,
Laurence Fishburne turn up as the wily security strong-arm who gives Ben
intimate close-ups of his beautiful rings then realises the college
student might lead him to a bigger fish that got away.
21 is too long by a good 10 minutes, and certainly
didn’t need its abundance of endings. It was like Return of the King -
when you think it’s over, it keeps going another way. Pick one and be
happy, Robert Luketic, you’re the director. The uneven pacing between
the scenes featuring the fast camera cuts of Vegas and drone of
post-field-trip Boston didn’t help. I get it - his friends are mad,
okay, he can buy new ones! The holes in the story are also a bit hard to
take: Ever hear of a bank account, smart boy? Money in the ceiling
…pshaw, that’s what coffee cans are for! And when exactly does this
movie take place, there are all sorts of discordant clues about the time
period from security technology to fashion. While it’s a nice sentiment,
I didn’t buy the big romance between Jill and Ben. Was it Kate Bosworth
leaving me cold, or was it that she only seemed convincing when she was
saying no? For Jill to inexplicably accept Ben after soundly rejecting
him moments earlier seemed off and terribly formulaic (- maybe he did
the Bend and Snap in one of 21’s many La Vida Loca Las Vegas montages
and I missed it), but I guess it’s meant to give the swooners in the
audience some PG-rated thrills.
The good news is that 21’s sins are certainly
forgivable and buoyed by the charming Jim Sturgess, abetted by Messrs.
Spacey and Fishburne (- Why couldn’t they have had more scenes
together?), it’s far from the worst time at the movies one
could have. There are some smart moments with a nice, clever twist or
two. The rest of the blackjack team is cute and engaging, reeling off
some good lines. The cast seems to be having real fun and there’s no
reason, despite a few lags and holes that the audience shouldn’t either.
~ Mighty Ganesha
March 23rd, 2008
Click
here to read our interview with 21's star, Jim Sturgess,
featuring our exclusive photos.
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