21 (2008) : R.Luketic : 5/10

Published on: April 8th, 2008

Emotions are too obviously forced on us, like a card in the hands of an inexpert sharper.
[Graham Greene, review of Rembrandt in The Spectator, 20th November 1936]

If all of life is, as Damon Runyon calculated, 6/5 against, cinema operates on much lower percentages of probability. Most scripts aren't filmed. Most films aren't released. Most films that are released lose money. 21, therefore, has already ridden quite the lucky streak, dominating the US box-office for a full fortnight. Such success is unexpected, baffling: this is a so-so melodrama about gambling in Las Vegas, one content to recycle pretty much every cliche of the sub-genre. It's directed in a glossily sub-sub-sub-Michael Mann style by Robert (Legally Blonde) Luketic - who doesn't seem to have twigged that all this "Vegas, baby, Vegas" nonsense was unforgettably and irreparably debunked over a decade ago by Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn in Doug Liman's Swingers.
   Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb's script is based on a bestseller (Ben Mezrich's Bringing Down the House) about a team of maths PhDs who worked out a card-counting system virtually guaranteed to beat casinos – a stranger-than-fiction narrative which might have made for an engrossing documentary or two. Instead what we get is a corny "inspired by true events" melodrama/fantasia – one which, as the end credits solemnly disclaim, bears only a "coincidental" relation to actual people ("living or dead").
   Replacing the book's protagonist (non-Caucasian Jeff Ma) our fictional hero is the white-bread Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) – crazy name, crazy guy! - an implausibly lovelorn hunk from the (slightly) scruffy side of the tracks, whose mathematical skills look set to propel him into Harvard Medical School. The only way to get on the course, we're told, is to obtain the much sought after Robinson Scholarship – intended for a candidate who doesn't just excel, but "dazzles" and displays considerable "life-experience."
   This sets up a clunky Risky-Business-ripoff structure in which Ben – just as he turns (ahem) 21 – leaves his sheltered bookworm existence far behind, becoming part of the Vegas-bound crew assembled by smooth-talking Professor "Micky" Rosa (Kevin Spacey): "You'll have more fun than you'll ever have in your entire life. It's perfect," Spacey whispers, laying on the Mephistophelean shtick for all he's worth. Laborious, predictable, loaded-dice shenanigans duly ensue – including a plethora of shopworn sequences, such as the gamblers falling foul of old-school 'Loss Prevention' operative) Williams (Laurence Fishburne, unstretched.)
   Though moderately watchable as a morality tale (the moral being that intellectual geniuses are just as corruptible and gullible as the rest of us), it's somewhat baffling why 21 should have fared so much better than, say, George Clooney's Leatherheads, which it easily trumped on its opening weekend. The biggest 'name' in the cast is obviously Spacey's, but he's not exactly been box-office dynamite since moving to London. Indeed, he's a low-key presence on the picture's posters, which instead emphasise the picture's (relatively) youthful leads: Spacey's Beyond the Sea co-star Kate Bosworth (underused as honeytrap eye-candy) and Sturgess, whose last picture Across the Universe was also a surprise moneyspinner, Julie Taymor's Beatles fantasia defying disastrous reviews to connect with the lucrative teenage-girl demographic.
   Perhaps Sturgess is the least unlikely explanation for 21's box-office supremacy? He's easy enough on the eye – a bit like a cross between David Morrissey and Jake Gyllenhaal. As with Gyllenhaal in his breakthrough Donnie Darko, Sturgess's geeky character has conspicuously gym-pumped arms for someone who's supposedly an introverted "mathlete" – but he's engaging enough as a screen presence.
   Just a pity he didn't bother to come up with anything resembling the distinctive Bostonian accent (unlike his screen "mother" Helen Carey). Given the picture's geographical setting, and his character's flair with numbers, you might have thought Sturgess might could have copied those distinctive 'Beantown' vowels from Good Will Hunting. In a way, however, Sturgess' blandly generic accent is typical of 21 as a whole: risk-averse, playing the safe, percentage game – and never daring to go for broke..

Neil Young
15/18.Apr.08

——————————————————————–

USA
123m (BBFC timing)

director : Robert Luketic (Monster-In-Law; Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!; Legally Blonde.)
editor : Elliot Graham ( Superman Returns; The Greatest Game Ever Played; X2, etc)

seen 8.Apr.08 Newcastle (Empire cinema : press show)