Big Picture Big Sound

Revenge of the Vegas nerds

Director Robert Luketic has helmed his first major motion picture and the result is a "winner, winner, chicken dinner", to quote a popular line in his film, "21". It's a goofy phrase among gamblers that has been around for quite some time. The tale is based on a true story about a group of undergraduate MIT students with extraordinary mathematical abilities that go to Vegas to bust the bank by counting cards in teams, under the guidance of an MIT professor.

"21" opens with all the flash one could hope for of a big budget movie about Las Vegas. It is bigger than life, with the cards taking on a size of mythic proportions along with the close ups of these cards yielding a down to the pixel view of them. In fact, the whole film is beautifully shot. Along with its snappy pacing, it helps the audience know the rush that can come from gambling.

Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey) is the wisecracking professor at MIT that leads his students into their new world. Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) is the new head brainiac in Micky's Non-Linear math class and Micky wastes no time recruiting Ben to join his group of merry men and women. After initially resisting, Ben is persuaded by a young lady already in the group. Her name is Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth). It is very hard to imagine resisting anything she would ask of me so it's no shock that Ben succumbs easily.

After intensive training, Ben joins the group on a tour of the Vegas casinos and he quickly rises to the head of this elite class, becoming by far its biggest earner. Numerous trips to the Strip follow, each one bringing in more than the one before until it ultimately unravels. Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne) is a security expert working for a casino that discovers the scam and his interactions with Ben from that point forward propel "21" to its inevitable conclusion.

Luketic does a nice job here of showing Vegas and making it as exciting as possible for us. The whole picture reminds me a bit of Martin Scorsese's "Casino." Luketic loves the slowing down of action at its points of highest tension, much like Scorsese. I couldn't help but wonder if Luketic had extensively studied "Casino" and either intentionally or unintentionally tried to create a Scorsese film. It became a little much at some points but it is strong enough on its own that there is no major damage done.

The last twenty minutes or so seems a bit farfetched but since I didn't read the book upon which the movie is based, Ben Mezrich's best-selling "Bringing Down the House", I cannot be certain if the story has drifted off in an attempt to make it even more outlandish. There really is no need for that here because we still have a winner, winner, chicken dinner. Plus some just desserts.