21

Available at Amazon for £12.98 from TOMORROW! Despite being the most pedestrian and middle of the road formulaic film I've seen all year, I have to admit I kinda of enjoyed 21, the adaptation of Ben Mezrich's popular memoirs Bringing Down the House - the story of how six M.I.T. students took home millions from L.A. casino's from card-counting. There's something extremely interesting about tales of young kids making it rich and "beating the system" and although I'm sure the final version of what we got on screen was in it's own way even more ludicrous than the Ocean's movies, I found it a pretty entertaining way to fill in 2 hours. Jim Sturgess plays Ben Campbell, a math and science genius but despite his good looks, he is socially shy and is struggling on the question of "life experience" on his Harvard Med School application form. He worries that he actually hasn't really achieved or done anything in life. He spends his day working a dead end job at a menswear store but after impressing his new Math Professor Mickey Rosa (a glamorously catchy name for Kevin Spacey) with his logical thinking during lectures, he is invited back for an after school class, but no ordinary one at that. The next few months end up being enough life experience to last ten years. The multi-cultured class (Aaron Yoo from Disturbia and Liza Lapira, Jacob Pitts and Kate Bosworth make up the team) go on field trips to Vegas on weekends, where they card-count and attempt to steal vast sums of money from L.A. casino's. Ben, clearly the smartest of the bunch, is quickly pushed into becoming the figurehead of their schemes and he is the leading man who will take on the bulk of the responsibility by actually being the one to earn the money. Is card-counting really as easy as it is made out in this movie - I'm not really so sure but for the first time, after being told many times how this works... I finally understood the system. I think. The problem for Ben is, he gets greedy. He stars to "gamble" rather than "count" and as gambling brings in the factor of luck, one weekend he blows a whole wad of cash to the disgust of his team mates and Mickey. But what is it that Mickey actually does in the team? We keep hearing he is a veteran, the best at what he did but all he seems to do now is bark orders, arrange the hotel and reap the mass financial reward, at the expense of high risk and hard work on the half of the rest of the team. I won't spoil the rest of the film for you other than to say it's pretty entertaining watch. The acting is mostly good, Laurence Fishburne clearly enjoys his part here as the head of security who isn't so kind to anyone he finds card-counting. Robert Luketic's direction is pretty fluid and matches the style of the film. It's certainly a step up directing wise from his last two movies Monster-In-Law and Win a Date With Todd Hamilton but just don't expect an intense or highly informative version of what this fascinating true life tale could have been. Ultimately, it's a forgetful thriller without too many thrilling moments but when a tale like this has the hook of being based on a true story, you can't help but keep yourself watching.

rating: 2.5