21 (Two-Disc Special Edition) DVD Review
Posted by Jeremy Thomas on 07.31.2008
This one almost hits the jackpot
Directed by: Robert Luketic Written by: Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb
Starring: Jim Sturgess - Ben Campbell Kevin Spacey - Mickey Rosa Kate Bosworth - Jill Taylor Laurence Fishburne - Cole Williams Colin Angle - Professor Hanes Aaron Yoo - Choi Liza Lapira - Kianna Josh Gad - Miles Connolly Sam Golzari - Cam Kazazi Jacob Pitts - Fisher Jack McGee - Terry Roger Dillingham, Jr. - Head Bouncer
DVD Release Date: 7/22/2008 Running Time: 123 minutes
Rated PG-13 for some violence, and sexual content including partial nudity
Blackjack is one of the most popular card games the world over. Played in casinos from Atlantic City and Las Vegas to Monte Carlo—and pretty much everywhere in between—the game has a wide following due to the simplicity of the rules and mix of chance and skill involved. Much publicity has been given to the game due to the use of a skill called card counting, combined with basic strategy. These two skills, which involve counting the cards in play so far to know what’s likely to come up and betting a certain way based on that, have made people a ton of money—and doomed people who couldn’t do it well. One of the most well-known success stories in basic strategy is that of the MIT Blackjack Team. Operating from 1979 until the mid-1990’s, this group of students and ex-students from MIT, Harvard and other colleges made a ton of money. This caught the attention of author Ben Mezrich, who was amazed by the story. He wrote a loosely book based on the MIT students known as Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions. Published in 2002, it was optioned by Hollywood before the books even hit the shelves. Eventually distributed by Columbia Pictures, 21, starring Jim Sturgess and Kevin Spacey, managed to become the sleeper hit of the spring of 2008 despite criticism regarding the inaccuracies of the movie. Complaints were levied at the mostly-white cast—original MIT student Jeff Ma, who was involved, was even called a “race traitor” by several bloggers—and yet it managed to gross over $150 million world-wide on a $35 million budget. Now, it has its chance to shine on DVD.
The Movie
The film stars Sturgis as Ben Campbell, an honest, hard-working young man who’s attending MIT. Ben, who comes from a single-parent household and has had to work for everything he’s got, has had a dream since he was young of attending Harvard Medical School. He’s got all the qualifications; he’s a genius, he’s excelling at school and he’s involved in a group robotics project with his friends and fellow geeks Miles (Gad) and Cam (Golzari). He’s also a wiz with numbers, being able to do complex math off the top of his head. The one thing he doesn’t have is money, and in a meeting with a scholarship representative, he’s told that he has nothing that makes him “jump off the page.” Dejected about his future, he throws himself into his schooling and hanging out with Miles, Cam and his mother (Carey). It’s just at this point that he finds his answer—provided by math teacher Mickey Rosa (Spacey). Rosa, impressed with Campbell’s math talents and his coolness under pressure, invites him to join a group of math geniuses that go to Vegas each weekend and put their skills to use counting cards in blackjack. While hesitant, the opportunity to make enough money to go to Harvard is too much temptation, and with a little help from the girl of his dreams Jill (Bosworth)—who happens to be on the team—Ben signs up. Money and a world he’s never dreamed of opens up, and soon Ben is living the high life in a world where, as Jill tells him, “you can be anyone you want.” Everything’s flying high until a security consultant named Cole Williams (Fishburne) catches on, and events conspire to bring Ben’s world crashing down upon him.
21 is only loosely based off the novel, which is only loosely based off the actual events that occur, so to call this “based on a true story” is a bit of a misnomer. It’s a better statement to make in saying that the film is inspired by the true events. In finding that inspiration, the script from Peter Steinfeld (Be Cool) and Allan Loeb (Things We Lost in the Fire) takes the film in some pretty standard directions. One can follow the plot and predict what’s going to happen as things go along. This is pretty much the standard “geek finds a place in the cool kids” story, with Ben abandoning his geeky friends in favor of being part of the young and beautiful crowd. We can see the rise to heights and the world crashing down before it happens, and that makes the film feel rather tame in terms of the story. To counter that, director Robert Luketic, who guided Legally Blonde to a surprisingly successful run, amps things up in terms of the flash and glamour of Las Vegas. Everything while Ben and his cool colleagues are in Sin City is larger then life and almost a fantasy world, where they put on disguise and play it to the hilt. This tactic works to counter-balance the familiar plot, and gives the viewer something to enjoy while the story plays out. This works for a while, especially when contrasted with the more down-to-earth, real-life feel of Boston and MIT. When the glamour wears off and things start to come down on Ben, the story wears a little thin, and the ending seems too contrived to truly work.
What does work is the acting. Jim Sturgess is quickly establishing himself as one of the hot young talents in Hollywood, between Across the Universe which introduced him and this, which put him on the map. Sturgess plays Ben with a sincerity that makes us sympathize with him, even as he does the kinds of things we would hate him for in real life. The actor has a sense of freshness about him, and is very comfortable in the roles he’s chosen; here, he acts quite deftly as the eyes of the audience. Opposite Sturgess is a surprisingly strong supporting performance from Kate Bosworth. Bosworth has been one of the more over-hyped actresses since her career began, as outside of a nice performance in the criminally-ignored Wonderland she has yet to deliver a knockout role. She doesn’t knock this one out of the park, but it is one of her better roles to date as she makes Jill the kind of girl any geek would fall in love with, and excels in the scenes where Jill goes into disguise. The rest of the cast of whiz kid card-counters, which includes Aaron Yoo, Liza Lapira and Jacob Pitts, are serviceable in their roles, though Lapira sometimes seems a little bit lost among better actors. Lending their gravitas to the film are Spacey and Fishburne, who play the older characters of Rosa and Williams in their usual quality performances. Spacey delivers a role that is much like previous performances, sort of a Jack Vincennes-meets-Lex Luther meld, and exudes just enough menace when he comes into conflict with Ben that it helps the audience sympathize with the latter. For his part, Fishburne plays his character as sort of a weary thug, a man who knows that he’s about to be replaced and is just pissed off all to hell about it—an anger he takes out on those he finds counting cards. They’re not Oscar-worthy performances, but they are what the film needs to keep it moving and to raise the stakes for the younger actors.
While the plot weakens at time, the visuals never do. Luketic relies on some nicely-done CGI to convey the excitement and high-stakes of the blackjack tables, and the card counting and basic strategy is employed in a way that keeps the audience involved. It makes for a good time while it last, and that’s enough to carry the film through the weaker points into becoming something that, if not great, is at least an enjoyable ride while you’re watching.
Film Rating: 7.0
The Video
The 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer of 21 does the film a lot of favors, as this is a very colorful film in the Vegas moments and a lesser transfer would have hurt things badly. There's little noticeable grain, and colors stand out strongly without many problems in the contrast. Blacks are quite nice, and it presents a film that's good to look at from start to finish, vibrant in the Vegas scenes and muted in the Boston scenes in order to help establish that difference between the two worlds.
Video Rating: 8.5
The Audio
The audio track for 21 is exceptional, presented in a Dolby Digital 5.1 Audio with good volume. The dialogue is very nicely leveled with the great soundtrack, and the many ambient sounds of the casinos come across clearly over all speakers. There's no point at which any problems can be detected, and much like the video transfer, it enhances the film very nicely. The language options are English, French and Spanish, with the same for subtitles.
Audio Rating: 9.0
Special Features
The only difference between the one-disc and two-disc versions is a digital copy of the film which, while a feature I appreciate, is not everyone’s cup of tea and may not be worth the extra money for if you’re not big on watching movies on your computer. All the other features are on the first disc.
Commentary with Director Robert Luketic and Producers Dana Brunetti and Michael De Luca: While this commentary provides some useful information, it's exceedingly dull. Luketic, Brunetti and De Luca are rather lacking in warmth and are unable to convey the information in any way approaching charisma, and that hurts the track severely. For those who aren't absolutely obsessed with commentary tracks, the featurettes are far more interesting.
The Advantage Player: (5:26) This is, basically, a short about how to how to play blackjack and count cards, as told by the cast. They go into a brief overview of the history of blackjack, as well as the rules. They then discuss the system of basic strategy, and how it works. Of course, they point out the importance of having fun and playing within your means, which is always good advice (and will surely protect them against the lawsuit waiting to happen when some idiot watches this movie and thinks they can take the house). It's delivered in a fun and informative way and, while not exactly detailed, it provides better insight into what the characters in the movie are doing—and, of course, if one desires to learn how to do what they did, it's not a bad way to start.
Basic Strategy: A Complete Film Journal: (24:47) "Complete" may not be the proper word choice, but this featurette, the requisite making-of, is certainly detailed. There is discussion of the book being an inspiration, and how the book itself came about. Jeff Ma, one of the real-life MIT students, is interviewed, and he provides a fair amount of insight into the actual experience. The short then moves onto the development of the film, which was started before the book was actually finished. An amusing anecdote is revealed when the writer of the book, Ben Mezrich, mentions how surprised they were that MGM wanted it, considering how badly they got hit, and that they were afraid MGM just wanted to option the project to shut it down. There's the standard talk about how the cast was assembled, and how they were put through a basic strategy training camp. The digital effects are talked about, and production design is lightly touched on. It's a rather comprehensive look at the making process, more then you get from most DVD's.
Money Plays: A Tour of the Good Life: (7:08) This is a production short that talks largely focuses on the filming locations, specifically Boston versus Las Vegas. They talk about the differences between the two and making them the reality location (Boston) and the fantasy location (Vegas). This one is less detailed and more annoying, as the production designers use words like "beautiful" and "fantasy" way to much; one would think that they were talking about making a movie around elves and faeries, not MIT students. Still, it provides a few decent tidbits.
Previews: (20:41) Talk about loaded. This DVD contains a lot of previews from the special features, though many of them are eighteen second quickies for the DVD. We get a Sony Blu-Ray commercial and trailers for The House Bunny, Lakeview Terrace, Quarantine, the Korean fantasy-esque film CJ7, Prom Night, Across the Universe, a still page for 21 soundtrack, The Other Boleyn Girl, Casino Royale, the black comedy Married Life, Vantage Point, Persepolis, The Shield, Rescue Me, Made of Honor, and the retarded-looking teen comedy Taking Five.
Special Features Rating: 7.0
The 411: While it has its flaws, mostly due to a too-familiar plot, 21 is a fun ride. Heightened by great performances from the cast and a strong visual feel, Robert Luketic's story of a geek who finds out about the highs and lows of Vegas via his quick math skills overcomes some of the inherant problems provided by the script to make for an enjoyable viewing experience. The visual transfer and audio track do wonders in that respect, and the special features are informative without being boring. If you're looking for a good movie-watching experience that you don't have to think too terribly hard on, 21 might just be your game.
