21 (2008)
Directed by Robert Luketic
Ben Campbell is a young, highly intelligent student at M.I.T. who strives to succeed. Wanting a scholarship to transfer to Harvard School of Medicine to become a doctor, Ben learns that he cannot afford the $300,000 tuition as he comes from a poor, working-class background. But one evening, Ben is introduced by his unorthodox math professor to a small but secretive club of five students, Jill, Choi, Kianna, and Fisher, who are being trained by Professor Rosa to count cards at blackjack.
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23 films that influenced 21
What critics say influenced 21
So you see, 21 really is a composite of three separate films: Spider-Man, Rain Man and Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven.
Just compare the almost transcendent beauty of the penultimate scene from Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven (2001) with the Bellaggio fountains “choreographed” to Debussy’s “Claire de Lune” with a view of those same fountains here.
Spacey and Sturgess are on good form, but 21 doesn't achieve the satisfaction of The Pursuit of Happyness and falls well short of Ocean’s Eleven's cool.
They can't muster the sexy asides or smart-alec banter typical of movies of this genre, the Ocean's Eleven franchise being the prime example.
From "Swimming with Sharks" to "L.A. Confidential," "The Usual Suspects" to "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," Spacey was as deadly and dazzling as a cobra.
It's a cool concept, with equally cool Kevin Spacey ("The Usual Suspects," "Superman Returns") cast as the professor-turned-blackjack coach, who hatches the plan to use his job at MIT to recruit the most promising minds on campus for his underground team of brainy hipsters.
So you see, 21 really is a composite of three separate films: Spider-Man, Rain Man and Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven.
Moviegoers might remember it from "Rain Man."
While Ben's raking in the bucks and crushing on his teammate (Kate Bosworth), a Vegas casino consultant (Laurence Fishburne) starts to wonder if some "Rain Man"-style cheating is going on.
One can easily understand why one would need an analytical brain to be successful, and Ben is more "Beautiful Mind" John Nash than Dustin Hoffman's "Rain Man" though his story arc follows the same "rags to riches" formula as "Boiler Room" and "Wall Street" where Ben's success has to lead to an inevitable fall as lets it go to his head.
In fact, the formula employed here follows that of Spider-Man, right up to the point when Peter Parker is bitten by the radioactive spider and actually becomes the wallcrawler.
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As much as "Stop-Loss" deals with weightier issues, the film is as polarizing as the war in Iraq itself, handling the subject of shell-shocked veterans in a similar way as "Coming Home" and "The Deer Hunter."
Director Robert Luketic ("Legally Blonde," "Monster-in-Law") has aimed for a "Casino" 90210 style that works until its third act revenge story takes it beyond the realms of belief.
The story can be conveniently summarized by the title of the Ben Mezrich bestseller the film's based on (Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story Of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas For Millions), so let's just skip over to the carping: Luketic's direction is both lethargic and over-edited, the cast of rejects from The Hills (Jim Sturgess, Kate Bosworth, etc.) couldn't show emotion if Joe Pesci went at them with a hammer a la Casino, Kevin Spacey, Laurence Fishburne, and even Las Vegas phone in their performances.
The movie is also the inferior also-ran to Canadian-made The Last Casino, a well-played 2004 TV film based on the same book that screens regularly on The Movie Network.
In both cases, the movies are by directors doing the unexpected, Robert ("Legally Blonde") Luketic breaking away from his romantic comedy crutch with "21" and Kimberly Peirce making the war drama "Stop-Loss" after a painfully long gap since her debut, "Boys Don't Cry."
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(Also, he steals from the best, cribbing a famous shot wholesale from Chungking Express.)
One can easily understand why one would need an analytical brain to be successful, and Ben is more "Beautiful Mind" John Nash than Dustin Hoffman's "Rain Man" though his story arc follows the same "rags to riches" formula as "Boiler Room" and "Wall Street" where Ben's success has to lead to an inevitable fall as lets it go to his head.