21 (2008)

This movie had the best trailer I have seen all year. With The Doors rockin’ in the background, youth and money set the adrenaline pumping with a dark and almost illicit excitement. Did the movie live up to that? Well, let’s get to that later.

Based on the book “Bringing down the House” by Ben Mezrich and bits taken from his other book “Busting Vesgas”, 21 is totally the pre-summer hit of the year.

It stars Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, and Laurence Fishburn, and tells the story of how a team of M.I.T. students take Vegas for millions.

The main appeal of this movie, I think, isn’t all the stuff that’s good about it. I think it’s the money. Like a television game show, people like to dream about making mad money in a casino. In the movie, the kids are card-counters, and audience walks out feeling “Hey, I can do that too” and in this economy, wouldn’t THAT be nice.

What the film doesn’t show is the hours of practice each member of the team gave and the fact that these true event transpired in the roaring 90’s, when the casinos were a lot less sophisticated. In the book, there is an essay from one of team members about card counting, which gives an idea that this was much more completed than even the book lead on. I read the book.

Ok, but why spoil people’s fun. Let’s focus on other aspects of the film besides card counting.

Something I found irritating was that it was shot like postcard or travel show of Boston and Las Vegas. There is nothing original or interesting in the cinematography.

The cast is stronger than the script. Jim Sturgess does his best American ascent and shows he is a very decent actor in a way that was much to my surprise. One thing that the film did that was very right, was to show the very nerdy/geeky lifestyle of most of those at M.I.T. Trust me it was on target. Sturgess, who seems like he in his real life ever had any difficulty getting a date, was ON on every beat in his reactions on screen to having an attractive woman interact with him.


Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburn act very much like you would except them too. They carry there roles well adding some believability to the rest of the young cast. Aaron Yoo, who was in Rocket Science, shows himself again to be interesting and entertaining presence.

The biggest criticism I have heard about 21 has been from the Asian community. The real team was mostly Asian, mainly Chinese, and in the film the main characters are white, while the two Asians in the movie have small and almost unimportant roles.

My thoughts on that are, the criticism is justified but not entirely. I think maybe the movie wouldn’t be as commercial if it was a race movie. In America we like to believe that race doesn’t matter and we make anyone suffer who points that it really does. In real events the main characters were half-Asian. They were half white and Asian or half Hispanic and Asian. This mixed creates a look that the team wanted, because they could pass a multitude of nationalities that are best known for being obnoxious with money. Mainly, that Asian, Greeks, Arabs, et cetera, with money are seen as so distasteful in their behavior that it would distract the casino pit bosses from card counting system going on. By the time story of “Busting Vegas” takes place, which is a few years after this story, a group of Asian kids at blackjack table was very suspicious. So, that’s one side it. The other, I think, is the fact that there are a lot of Asians at M.I.T. and is reflected in the Blackjack club. The people in the story were almost all from Asian decent in one way or the other. So, it seems to me that probably a big reason not to show that is because, the producers figured that only Asians and few others would go see a movie full of Asians without Martial Arts. Finally, someone can argue that making a movie full of Chinese makes the movie about something other than students playing blackjack, and that is just the society we live in. I am sure you have your own thoughts.

A side from that long digression, the movie is good. The story is really exciting. I imagine this movie being a big hit with older people who doesn’t make it out to the movies very much, when it comes out on DVD and T.V.

It’s a bit long; somewhere around 2 hours, but you don’t really feel it. In short, this is a good one!