Film Review: 21 (2008)

The phrase "truth is stranger than fiction" often reflects the way in which certain real events prove so preposterous and fantastical that they appear beyond the wildest imagination of Hollywood screenwriters. History is replete with stories that defy belief—tales of audacity, cunning, and improbable success that would seem contrived if presented as fiction. Yet, paradoxically, when Hollywood attempts to exploit those very events for their fictional films, the result is frequently underwhelming. The raw vitality of real life, with all its messy contradictions and inconvenient details, rarely survives the journey through the development process. One particularly egregious example of this phenomenon can be found in 21, the 2008 thriller drama directed by Robert Luketic, which takes a genuinely remarkable true story and reduces it to a succession of tired clichés.

The film is based on Bringing Down the House, Ben Mezrich's 2003 best-selling non-fiction account of the MIT Blackjack Team. Mezrich, an author whose later works would also find their way to the screen—most notably The Accidental Billionaires, which Aaron Sorkin transformed into 2010's acclaimed The Social Network—crafted a narrative that dealt with a group of brilliant mathematics and computer science students from MIT, Harvard, and other elite universities. This collective, formed roughly at the end of the 1970s, utilised their superior intellectual abilities to perfect card counting and various other techniques, winning astronomical sums from casinos across America. The story had all the ingredients of compelling cinema: genius, subversion, high stakes, and the vicarious thrill of watching the house lose.

However, Mezrich later admitted that significant portions of his book were, in fact, fictionalised. Many characters and events were composite creations, with details added to "spice up" certain sections and heighten dramatic tension. This embellishment was mild, however, compared to what followed. The screenplay by Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb goes considerably further, shifting the setting to a contemporary timeframe and constructing a completely fictional protagonist involved in events bearing only passing resemblance to historical reality. The transformation from documented truth to Hollywood fiction strips away precisely those elements that made the original story so captivating.

The protagonist, played by Jim Sturgess, is Ben Campbell, a mathematics major at MIT who has been accepted to Harvard Medical School but cannot afford the $300,000 tuition fees. Nor can he reasonably hope to secure a scholarship, given the fierce competition for such prestigious funding. Campbell is, however, exceptionally gifted, and his understanding of game theory and probability attracts the attention of Professor Mickey Rosa (Kevin Spacey). Rosa recruits Campbell into a small, elite group of students trained to employ card counting techniques to defeat the casino at blackjack. Following an initial test, Rosa dispatches the team to Las Vegas, where they utilise various tricks and sophisticated communication methods to coordinate their play in ways that guarantee profit, with half the earnings flowing to Rosa himself.

The scheme proves enormously successful, and each visit to Vegas renders Campbell richer, more confident, and increasingly smug. He begins to embrace the high-roller lifestyle and attempts to romance Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth), a fellow team member who was already the object of his affections back at MIT. Yet this newfound wealth and arrogance also make him careless—vulnerabilities that Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne), the casino security chief, is determined to exploit. Williams is resolute in his mission to catch "cheaters" in the act, and he harbours personal scores to settle with Rosa from previous encounters.

The fundamental concept of the film—a cadre of intellectuals outwitting one of the most sophisticated security apparatuses in the world—appears genuinely exciting on paper. Yet translating that excitement to the screen proves apparently beyond the capabilities of the screenwriters. Like Mezrich before them, they attempt to compress what was in reality a protracted scheme involving numerous participants over many years into a far simpler narrative that resembles an even more reductionist morality play. The protagonist's motivation is framed not primarily around intellectual challenge or simple greed, but rather existential necessity—though the conclusion obligingly supplies the requisite Hollywood ending, with the character recognising the error of his ways whilst being rewarded with the girl, the money, the scholarship, and essentially everything his heart desired.

All of this feels cheap and thoroughly unconvincing, a situation made appreciably worse by Robert Luketic's uninspired direction, which follows every screenplay cliché regarding the shadowy world of Las Vegas gambling with relentless MTV-style glitz and glamour. Luketic demonstrates a significant problem with pacing as well, particularly during an interminable finale that makes the film feel substantially longer than its actual two-hour running time.

The casting choices present additional complications. Jim Sturgess, the young English actor who achieved his breakthrough a year earlier in Across the Universe, approaches his stereotypical role with commendable commitment. Regrettably, his very involvement sparked controversy and accusations of "whitewashing," given that the principal real-life inspiration for his character was alleged to be of Asian descent. The remainder of the cast, despite featuring actual Asian performers, fares considerably worse. Kevin Spacey excels in the role of a slimy yet charming villain—a part he could assuredly perform blindfolded—and easily overshadows Laurence Fishburne, who is relegated to a routine adversary role. Kate Bosworth appears fundamentally lost in the production, unconvincing as a female academic and utterly lacking in romantic chemistry with Sturgess.

21 did achieve moderate commercial success at the box office, but it was largely dismissed by critics, and contemporary audiences now regard it as one of the more obscure and forgettable films of its era, an example what happens after sacrificing truth at the altar of Hollywood convention.

RATING: 3/10 (+)

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