“21” Starring Jim Sturgess, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey Directed by Robert Luketic Columbia Pictures

out of

Imagine hitting a hot blackjack table in Vegas only to discover that the table is literally hot – resting your wrists on the table edge, you get second-degree burns and spend the evening in the ER instead of in the pit. That experience is about equivalent to watching “21.”

Throughout the movie, you will find yourself wishing that things could have been different – it’s absurd that a movie with everything going for it turns out so poorly. What could be more exciting for college senior Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess), feeling angst over graduation, than going to Vegas to use his math skills counting cards and crushing Blackjack tables? Kevin Spacey plays his mentor and Kate Bosworth plays his chief partner on a team of beautiful genius students. Laurence Fishburne’s Cole Williams is the brutal security boss desperate to prove surveillance technology can’t replace how his knuckles communicate with a card counter like Ben. It’s tough to get more exciting than this – on paper, anyway. Something went wrong by the time the project got to the screen.

A big point in the movie is that card counting isn’t illegal. That said, there’s also a big secret in the movie – card counting isn’t illegal. Knowing that desperadoes like Cole matter more than the cops, the dark and charismatic professor Micky Rosa (Spacey) throws Ben and his fellow students onto the strip without any moral reservations. You will spend most of the movie trying to figure out if Micky is good, or more importantly, loyal to his eagerly obedient students, and whether Ben should be more worried about him or Cole.

The movie is based on Ben’s realization that the only way to pay for med school at Harvard is to get a $300,000 scholarship or hope for a miracle. This sounds exciting, but “21” does a poor job of building his character and the defining conflict. When Micky attempts to convince Ben that there’s nothing wrong with counting cards to score big winnings, Ben comes back with several different ways to say no but doesn’t give any convincing reasons. If he turned, you could see the beams propping up his flimsy character.

To make matters worse, Campbell doesn’t seem to loosen up until the end of the movie. Even when he’s supposed to be cutting loose and enjoying his change of identity in a Las Vegas hotel room, you can hear him holding back his lines – shouts of exultation at a mirror become questions instead.

Kevin Spacey, in all his Hollywood luminescence, is too isolated in his interactions to shine, which is thoroughly disheartening. Once again, it is only at the end, while stepping into a ridiculous disguise, that we are really treated to solid entertainment.

On a more technical level, the editing is off and the moving camera becomes awkward at times. Dead air and space invade the experience, tearing down interesting situations like Ben’s first counting test at an underground gambling hall and an ensuing argument with Micky.

However, when it comes to flipping cards on blackjack tables, the colors burst off the screen, and it seems that slow motion power zooms, smash cuts and rack focuses are still cool as hell to watch. The only dialogue is banter between gamblers and dealers: The rest is all action. Despite misgivings about Ben’s character, your heart will race with his when he hits the strip, blowing out hot tables like birthday candles.

Even though there is a lot that could have been better about “21,” the idea of the conflict itself is great – a privileged student suffering from existential crisis must avoid an additional moral crisis. Cole’s fight against new face recognition technology that will replace him scanning casino security videos is like Ben’s. Both are used by a system that forgets that skilled and logical humans are prone to wild action when provoked, which should resonate with any viewer who has ever felt mistreated.

“21” gets a little mistreated itself. It seems that there’s a lot to like here, and the numbers are set to add up. But once it busts, it doesn’t matter how far over 21 it is – it still isn’t the winner.