Product Description

Inspired by the true story of MIT students who mastered the art of card counting and took Vegas casinos for millions in winnings. Looking for a way to pay for tuition, Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) finds himself quietly recruited by MIT's most gifted students in a daring plot to break Vegas. With the help of a brilliant statistics professor (Kevin Spacey) and armed with fake IDs, intelligence and a complicated system of counting cards, Ben and his friends succeed in breaking the impenetrable casinos. Now, his challenge is keeping the numbers straight and staying one step ahead of the casinos before it all spirals out of control.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10096 in DVD
• Brand: SONY PICTURES HOME ENT
• Released on: 2008-07-22
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Original language: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Thai
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Indonesian
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish, Portuguese, Thai
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 123 minutes

Amazon.com
An unconvincing exercise in moral complexity, 21 is based on Ben Mezrich's book Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions. Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe) plays brilliant, blue-collar scholar Ben Campbell, whose doubts that he'll win a scholarship to Harvard Medical School compel him to join a secret, M.I.T. gang of math whiz kids. Under the silky but chilling command of a math professor (Kevin Spacey), Jim and the others master card counting, i.e., the statistical analysis of cards dealt in blackjack games. The team lives a humdrum existence during the week, but on weekends in Sin City, the students are rolling in cash, going to exclusive clubs, and feeling on top of the world. (Ben even gets the girl: a comely, fellow counter played by Kate Bosworth.) Despite all that success, Ben feels ethically compromised, and indeed director Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde), in the old tradition of American movies, plays it both ways where fun vices are concerned. On the one hand, it feels so good; on the other, ahem, we know it's wrong. That studied ambivalence proves wearing after a while, making the most interesting character in the film a casino watchdog played by Laurence Fishburne. A master at reading the emotions of gamblers beating the house with a scam, he's admirable for being good at his job, but repellent for wrecking the faces of counters in casino dungeons. He's all about moral complexity in the tradition of anti-heroes, and a truly provocative element in an otherwise superficial movie. --Tom Keogh

Beyond 21

Two-disc Special Edition DVD

Read the book 21 was based on

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Stills from 21 (click for larger image)

Customer Reviews

21
Ben Campbell (Sturgess) has a problem. He is graduating from MIT and has been accepted to Harvard Med School, but he doesn't have the $300,000 it will cost him to attend. Then, along comes Professor Micky Ross (Spacey). Mickey offers him a place on his "team". This team visits Las Vegas on weekends, and by counting cards makes a lot of money. After initially refusing, Ben is swayed by the need for money and the affections of Jill Taylor (Bosworth), a member of the team. In Vegas, Cole Williams (Fishburne), the head of security of one of the casinos is about to figure out the team's scheme. Ben may be in for more than he bargained for.

"21" is the fictionalized account of college kids who really did beat one of the most sophisticated anti-crime systems in Las Vegas. The story is interesting, even if it has been Hollywoodized. The plot points toward the end are predictable, but the fact that these kids were able to get away with this for so long sustains the interest for the majority of the movie. Kevin Spacey is good as always, radiating intenseness. Sturgess and Bosworth get the job done, while not providing memorable performances. "21" is an interesting, enjoyable film.

Glamorous does not equal better
The story of how several MIT students were able to beat Vegas at their own game is compelling and entertaining. Unfortunately, it's told in a book titled Bringing Down the House not this movie. While based on the factual account of extremely bright card counters who devised a system capable of generating a very favorable win ratio in Black Jack, 21 delivers very little of that true story. Instead, it focuses on sensationalizing elements of the story and dramatically over simplifying others. It provides a glamorous but empty portrayal of characters who in real life were very interesting and intelligent.

Card counting, as represented in this movie, hardly requires anything more than an average IQ and the ability to count quickly, not the gifted mind of a top MIT student. Frankly, this has been simplified so that the viewer is able to grasp the key concepts; not a bad idea in itself since not everyone is a gifted mathematician, but they've gone too far and left the viewer wondering what, if anything, makes the protagonist Ben Campbell or any of his cohorts special. As portrayed in 21, it seems that anyone could practice counting cards in their basements for several months and then go make unlimited amounts of money in Vegas. There are ways to make material accessible to the audience without over simplifying it to the level of silliness. The Paper Chase is a good example of how to do this tastefully.

Over simplification is not the only issue in 21. Other elements have been made glamorous where unnecessary, sometimes with a level of implausibility that is laughable. The worst of these would require providing spoilers, but there are a few worth mentioning. First, these wildly intelligent card counters, led by a street-smart proffer played by a well cast Kevin Spacey, are always frequenting night clubs, sleeping in luxury casino penthouses, and in general drawing massive amounts of attention to themselves, all while purportedly trying to stay under the radar of the Casinos and their eye-in-the-sky security experts. This is ridiculous. Not even Lawrence Fishburn's entirely convincing and frightening portrayal of an old-school casino security chief can save this movie from dreary implausibility. Second, the interplay between the students are based on silly cliche. These same 'brilliant' students cannot seem to remember their own basic set of rules, or even follow basic Black Jack strategy when they are either fatigued, angry, etc... That is a blatant, undercutting reversal of what is supposed to make them who they are: an icy ability to calculate odds and stick to a system.

Spacey and Fishburn make the movie less of an ordeal, but they're not enough to save this one from itself. Some of the dialogue is pretty interesting, especially the interplay between the protagonist Ben and his cut-throat professor. The psychological underpinnings of the relationships between Ben, the professor, and the former premier card counter whom Ben has supplanted could have been a dramatic gold mine, but these interactions are left on the sidelines in a movie more concerned about driving the plot forward than telling a great story.

Overall, 21 is worth watching simply because its the next closest thing to the excellent book on which it is based. This is a rent not a buy. 2.5 stars, rounded up to 3 because of Spacey and Fishburn.

HIT ME
Films about gambling and Las Vegas in particular have always held a certain fascination with the public, culminating with perhaps the ultimate Vegas movie OCEAN'S ELEVEN. But this week we have a release of a film that takes the Vegas movie a whole new direction. Most stunning of all is that it is in part based on a true story.

TWENTY ONE is the story of Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess), a struggling student at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) who has hopes of attending Harvard Med School. A grade A student with a 4.0 average, Ben is interviewed for a full ride scholarship. All he has to do is present an essay describing a life experience that sets him out above the other several hundred students applying. The problem is he has nearly no life experience.

That all changes when he starts a class taught by Prof. Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey). During the class, Rosa notices Ben's aptitude with numbers and mathematical equations. In turn, he invites him to join a select group of students Rosa has put together. The reason? Using the technique of counting cards, they plan to make a mint in Vegas at the blackjack tables.

At first hesitant to do so, Ben finally comes around and joins the group which consists of Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth), Choi (Aaron Yoo), Kianna (Liza Lapira) and Fisher (Jacob Pitts). The group learns to not only count cards, they put together a set of signals to let the lead player know which tables are hot and when to move on. When they have it down, they become Vegas bound.

It runs like clockwork. The tables return them all a tidy profit and back to school they go, only to return weekend after weekend. Along the way a romance develops between Ben and Jill, Choi continues to pilfer tiny items everywhere he goes and Fisher places the entire project in jeopardy with a drunken night at the tables. The result is Fisher gets booted and Ben becomes the big cheese.

With money coming in like never before, the rush of taking on the tables in Vegas and finding love at last, Ben's life changes but not for the better. Grades become a thing of the past as do his friends. His focus becomes making more and more money until he takes a chance he can't come back from.

A bad night at the tables results in Micky cutting Ben lose and leaving the team in their hotel room alone. Making the decision to go it alone, Ben gets caught by Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne), the head of security for the hotel casino. Not only does he get caught, Cole has a grudge against an old gambler he lost years ago...named Micky Rosa.

The twists and turns at the end of the film along with the build up from the start make this a compelling movie that holds your attention from the starting gate. Ben's life riding a roller coaster of lows, highs and a return to the lows makes for an interesting tale that turned out much better than I expected.

All performances seen in this flick are totally believable from the leads to the secondary characters. While Spacey may have been the "name above the title" in getting this movie made, he doesn't take center stage here, instead opting to work with the ensemble and that is to the benefit of the film.

Based on the true story of a group of MIT students who actually did take Vegas for a ton of money, though not nearly in the same way shown here for dramatic effect, the film is certain to get the hopes up of gamblers seeking a way to beat the bank. Don't get caught up in that notion as the house is always the favorite. Instead, get caught up in the tale of a group of students led by a charismatic teacher who take a gamble and end up getting more than they bargained for.