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Over the last five years or so, cable television and eventually network television dedicated entire programs to watching other people play poker.  Big budget films have been dedicated to or have used playing poker as a plot device to move a film along.  Poker, and card games for that matter, are about beating the odds.  So it was only a matter of time before the true story of a group of M.I.T. students who used math to beat Vegas casinos was going to be made.  21 is based on the Ben Mizrich novel entitled “Bringing Down the House, the Inside Story of Six M.I.T. students Who took Vegas For Millions”. 

It tells the story of Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess), an M.I.T. student who is accepted into Harvard Medical School.  He has his doubts as to how he will afford his tuition when he is invited into an underground club led by Mickey Rosa (Kevin Spacey), whose members use their math skills to count cards.  They target the casinos of Las Vegas to get rich.  When casino security manager Cole Williams (Lawrence Fishburne) realizes that something is amiss, he has to track down the members of the M.I.T team.  Campbell and the team have to get out of Vegas before they are subject to a little old school lesson on getting caught robbing a casino.

While 21 has an intriguing premise, and certainly has the promise of plenty of intrigue, the film rarely seems to be able to build any kind of momentum and almost no suspense.  Director Robert Luketic lets the film meander along, and pieces that should have an impact on the film don’t seem to have any impact at all.  The characters never seem to be in any real danger and by the end of the film it is too easy not to care about any of the characters or their journey through the film.  Part of the enjoyment of the film should be the idea of watching someone get away with a great heist.  21 just goes through the motions. 

While Luketic does seem to try at points get the audience interested in what they are watching, the points are too far apart to sustain any kind of interest.  The director spends too much time trying to convince the audience that the important part of the film involves visual techniques used to make blackjack exciting.  The meat of 21 seems to get lost in the process.  This film would be a nice rental but is a bit of a chore to sit through in a dark theater. 

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