‘21’

‘21’ is an unremarkable film but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Unless you are looking for something with even a hint of substance than you will probably enjoy this movie like I did.

The story of this film can be looked at like a checklist and you have to admire Hollywood’s precision in churning these things out. Okay so you have an innocent, admirable, Intelligent, unassuming hero who will go through great change. Become bad and then see the error of his ways to receive wisdom. Check. Next up you have the unobtainable girl. Someone on the B list who will not have to paid over five million. Oh that’s you Kate Bosworth. Okay we need a mentor/villain played by a familiar character actor on downtime between other more worthy projects. Kevin spacey you will do just fine. And now we just need a story. How about ‘Bringing down the house’ the New York Times best seller about a bunch of college kid’s card counting in Vegas. Perfect. Except for the title which was already used in a crap Steve Martin comedy. I know we will just call it ‘21’ it sounds snappier and it may already have something to do with cards. Oh and you get Lawrence Fishburne as well.

And there you have it, that’s ‘21’. The movie falls nicely into the cracks between two sub genres the teen/College ensemble and the Vegas movie. ‘21’ works far better as a Vegas movie than as a teen drama and I suspect the makers knew this as well because the usual tepid teen romance between the leads is allocated as little time as possible and its all the better for it. The plot is plausible and develops routinely enough so as we don’t completely lose interest. This is really the story of how a nerdy college kid becomes involved in a card counting troupe so as he can pay for his tuition fees and how the success and lifestyle all goes to his head. There is some giddy fun to be had in the card counting scenes and the characters are just peppy enough so as we can root for them. We also feel complicit in taking on Vegas and no one ever wants the house to win.

Most everyone here does their day job adequately. Jim Sturgess does just enough geeky fropping to keep him on the cast lists of mediocre movies for another while and director Robert Luketic gives us some fancy camerawork that distracts just the right amount. For now he should be safe on the Hollywood treadmill. There are exceptions of coarse Lawrence Fishburne plays it as if he is in an entirely different movie. In fact his early scenes bare little resemblance to the rest of the picture and at times I suspected the projectionists reel got spliced with scenes from ’Smokin aces’ or something else like that. Bosworths performance also doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny either. She is good and certainly looks wholesome but she kind of comes across as icy and it’s not just here. Who knows maybe it’s a recurring theme in her career. Kevin spacey also does his usual scene chewing which is no better or worse than usual.

The end result is a middle of the road example of an entire middle of the road movie genre. The best example being the brilliant ‘WarGames’ and the worst being lame Tim Robbins thriller ‘Antitrust’. Not that it matters much the movie is completely acceptable on its own terms.. ‘21’ could have been a lot better of course. A kind of ‘Cooler’ meets ‘Ferris Bueller’s day off’ movie. But it’s content with what it is. And perhaps you will be too.