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| 21 (Single-Disc Edition) | 
 enlarge | Actors: Jim Sturgess, Kate Bosworth, Jack Gilpin, Jack Mcgee, Kevin Spacey
Studio: Sony Pictures
Category: DVD
List Price: $28.96
Buy Used: $5.46
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Avg. Customer Rating:  79 reviews
Sales Rank: 571
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Dubbed), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 123
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.7
MPN: 26718
UPC: 043396267183
EAN: 0043396267183
ASIN: B0018CWW5K
Theatrical Release Date: March 28, 2008
Release Date: July 22, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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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.System Requirements:Running Time: 123 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA/BUDDIES Rating: PG-13 UPC: 043396267183 Manufacturer No: 26718
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 
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Read the book 21 was based on | 
UMD for PSP | Stills from 21 (click for larger image)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 74 more reviews...
You can always count on emotions July 25, 2008
119 out of 126 found this review helpful
Many critics have found the movie distressed and compromised by the lack of vitality that should be excited by any movie that has Vegas as its stage. Indeed they do not overdraw from a tale that rehearses the usual rut of a good guy forced by circumstances to use his talents to an immoral strain so as to keep up with the rest of the world. The story is based on the book "Bringing Down the House", about the experiences of MIT student Jeff Ma and his team of gambling buddies, yet it deals with situations that both add and detract from the truth and the fiction alike. In the process of translating the narrative as a movie script the story absorbs qualities that feel jaded and ordinary by Hollywood standards, and the sensationalism of the story is depressed by the memory of Ocean's 11 and Casino, movies that have raised the stakes so high 21 flops by comparison. Not to mention the radically simplified version of the "cheating" strategy employed by the students, which seems to be so arithmatically feasible that one wonders why it does not happen more often. And by the way it does happen but to say that it is possible is not saying anything beyond the dreamy subtitle of a Vegas trip.
The movie does have numerous redemptive qualities, some of which have been so indiscreetly dealt with by most critics it gives credit to the theatregoers who simply discuss movies for fun and not as a professional happenstance. The movie has a subpolt filthy rich with a wealth of psychology that it is unfortunate the leading role went to Jim Sturgess. The star of the team of brains that "plays" the casinos is frightful to watch. This is undoubtedly the worst acting in a leading role in a long time. Emotionally he is a dud; his intelligence never shines through; his panache is invisible; his anxiety mechanical; and his attraction for Jill is melodramatic without the hint of affection and as if it were not enough, his supposed timidity is something we deduce more so by hearsay than by any true acting merit. If reminded of another Boston genius played by Matt Damon in "Good Will Hunting" we realize how bad the performance is. And he stands alongside Kevin Spacey, who is in top form as a math professor that recruits the students and schools them on how to take down the house. The wry sarcasm, the coiled irony and the implacable cynicism we have come to admire is delivered with taste as always. He elicits well the emotional farce of a stigmatized, pulverizing, insensitive, crass, demoniacal soulless leader that corrupts and avenges without any notion of a limit ever being entertained. Spacey is fabulous and Laurence Fishburne is far too good for the role dealt him, but as all great actors have time and again reminded us, there is no such thing as a small role. He practically takes over the movie. His struggles and fears, the demons of the past that haunt him and the vengence he craves as a anodyne to a tarrying heartache is impressive. His psychosis is balanced just enough to climax with irresistable loathsomeness, all the while rendered so vitally sympathethic we end up siding with him, to some extent, only to be reminded by the plot that we should not have according to script. And what about Jill? yes the genius gal who is second shafted because of gender by the math prof, she seduces the audience, even Ben (although the acting made us wonder quite a bit). Kate Bosworth emotionally composed performance fits well with the directive of her role. This film reunites her with co-star/director Kevin Spacey and director Robert Luketic. She demonstrates the maturity of an actress scintillatingly beyond the clammy classless fixture of her romantic counterpart. She admonishes Ben on several occassions thereby functioning as a alloy to his instinct and as a monition of conscience, which all american movies must support in some way so as to be rated PG-13, as this one is. Not a scene where she becomes sexy merely by physical disclosure, rather she is sensual because of her aloof poignant approach to rational stirrings. She evades close-ups, she dashes through frames as if by impetus and never loses the momentum claimed from the moment she enters the intricacies of the drama. She deserves a better mate, but the role of Ben is an excessively demanding character to do justice to.
The outstanding quality of the movie resides in its exploration of the reason/emotion dichotomy. The two spheres seem to be mutually-exclusive until we do indeed approach Shakespearean heights that defy any such garbled psychology. We are brought to economize the sentimental pragmatism that is required of such a narrative by tracing the vulnerability that such a distinction isolates. Please watch the movie again, those of you who've failed to illuminate this aspect of a trajectory that takes us card after card unto a universe where rational dictates are full force countermanded by emotional traces, and the two domains clash and clang to a barely audible cacophany that goes beyond the moral lithanies we often impose on the ethics of a movie. Here there is no such thing. We see Lady MacBeth, we see Iago, we see Othello. There have been few movies that have been able to unearth the benumbing force that these separate universes betray. 21 succeeds in this, more so than the book on which it is based. And the performances of Spacey, Fishburne, Bosworth, and not least Jacob Pitts in the role of Fisher make it a flick worth viewing. The last actor in the aforementioned list, Jacob Pitts, sidled into a minor role that is played flawlessly that storms about with thunderous energy.
21 has fertile layers, that if one is willing to explore, will yield a chill and lead to question the intellectual quality of emotion and vice versa as a proverbial Shakespearean drama has the stealth to do. And yes Jim Sturgess was legitimate in "Across the Universe", but here we have a star that drags the movies down while everyone else tries to salvage what it may.
 Viewer loses June 8, 2008
63 out of 111 found this review helpful
No one wins in this one-dimensional and highly improbable movie, allegedly based on a true story, but obviously stretched to the limits of artistic license.
Short Attention Span Summary (SASS):
1.Math whizzes can count cards
2.Math whizzes can learn signals
3.Math whizzes from Boston can spend entire weekends gambling and partying in Vegas, maintain 4.0 GPA scores, and keep it a secret
4.Math whizzes can't figure out that they should learn new signals, especially when playing the same casinos every weekend
5.The ends don't add up to the means
Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburne play unlikeable characters in unimpressive performances that fail to save the movie, and the rest of the cast are either bland or annoying, or both. The moral issues are barely skimmed, almost as an afterthought to give the movie a purpose.
In summary, nothing in this movie adds up, and when all the cards are dealt, it's a bust.
Amanda Richards, June 8, 2008
 Infertile hybrid June 13, 2008
25 out of 79 found this review helpful
I normally don't like movies about college students and their problems very much, they make me feel too nostalgic. I normally don't like movies about gambling very much, not even when they are dressed up as thrillers. (Exceptions possible, eg Casino Royal)
What possessed me when I tried out whether a cross breed of the two genres might work, I can't remember. The answer is a straightforward 'no'. However, at the same time, this movie here is so incompetent in its execution, while at the same time it does seem to contain the nucleus for a viable thriller, that I felt continuously thinking about how one might have saved it. Don't bother, let it rot.
Watching Spacey as diabolic math professor made me nostalgic for Kayser Soze. Fishburn is possibly the only character here with a trace element of human interest: the security consultant to the casinos in process of being replaced by computers.
Over-Fictionalized Eye Candy that Only Wants Your Money April 9, 2008
15 out of 17 found this review helpful
21 is loosely based on the book Bringing Down The House. A book recommended to me time and time again by some friends of mine who like to gamble. I never got around to reading it but the idea of counting cards to outsmart and exploit some of the greatest of all exploiters certainly interests the old corporation-hating punk still lurking deep in my soul. So when some of those same friends wanted to see this movie, I reluctantly went along. I say reluctantly because I'm tired of these cliche twenty-something party movies with the primary goal of looking 'cool' first and foremost. Not to mention, at this point I'm actually tired of seeing Kevin Spacey reprise his role as Lester Burnham again and again. Another once great actor descending to one-dimensional self-parody. Anyway, sometimes I walk into a movie thinking it will suck and I'm pleasantly surprised that it only sucks a little, and other times I walk into a movie thinking it will suck and it still sucks. A day later and 21 still sucks.
To go over briefly, this is a fictionalized adaptation of the card counting scheme put together by a real-life MIT blackjack "team". When I say fictionalized, I think it is to the point where the story was merely inspired by this group, as enough liberties are taken that the film becomes a Hollywood cliche-ridden formulaic blockbuster. And I really mean that in the worst way possible. All fictional elements added are cliches; from the twists and casino thugs to the shallow and extremely unlikely characters and events. Spacey is made to be a fool and Fishburne does his very best De Niro. Both actors are clearly not interested in anything but going through the motions. Kate Bosworth is a monotonous mannequin and the very talented young British actor Jim Sturgess (great in last year's Across the Universe) works hard but unlike Fishburne and Spacey he is probably too young to realize that his performance means nothing. Overall so much acting talent wasting their time here, slumming it in Hollywood's over-stylized shallow end. Still, the first half of the film focused enough on the actual scheme that it worked a little bit, and from what I hear the first half was consistent with the book (other than the cast being mostly white people while the real-life MIT students were mostly Asian, why is that anyway?). I wanted to understand more about the game they exploited and I really wanted to root for them as they take these casinos for a ride, but in the end the film turns into a weak heist film with unlikely and unbelievable twists.
The thing that perplexes me most is the money this film is making. I even heard applause from the nearly full theater after the movie ended. Young Australian director Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde and Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!) has style, I will give him that. He understands what a mass audience wants and he gives them the fancy zooms and quick edits along with the loud and trendy soundtrack. He gives them the pretty people and the cheap twists. He makes people money and for that he isn't going anywhere for a long time, that's for sure. I think I've seen too many films not to find this trite and worn out but maybe you haven't. If that's the case then give it a look but otherwise this is definitely not recommended.
All Bets Are Off March 29, 2008
12 out of 18 found this review helpful
There are so many misfires in the plot of "21," you'd think the filmmakers would be too embarrassed to advertise it as being inspired by a true story. I didn't believe this movie for one second, and this is only partly because it tells such an implausible tale--anyone gifted with the ability to count cards would never involve themselves in a scheme this obvious, and they certainly wouldn't be stupid enough to repeatedly go to the same two or three casinos. And yet five students and a teacher from MIT do exactly that every weekend in Las Vegas playing Blackjack, a game that can easily be won, mathematically speaking. I know little about Ben Mezrich's book "Bringing Down the House," and I know even less about Blackjack; all I can say is that, even if there was an MIT team that won millions by counting cards, I seriously doubt the characters in this film accurately represent the real-life members.
Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) is an MIT student hoping to be accepted into Harvard Medical. But he has two problems: (1) tuition and boarding alone would cost around $300,000, an amount his managerial job at an upscale clothing store would not provide; (2) despite his excellent grades, a scholarship cannot be guaranteed. He soon meets math professor Mickey Rosa (Kevin Spacey), who immediately picks up on Ben's superior intelligence. Almost immediately, Ben is lured into joining a secret Blackjack club led by Mickey and teamed with four other math geniuses: Jill (Kate Bosworth), Choi (Aaron Yoo), Kianna (Liza Lapira), and Fisher (Jacob Pitts). Because they're all able to count cards, they know they can beat any casino and walk away with bundles of money. Besides, it's not as if card counting is illegal. Ben reluctantly agrees to join the club, making it clear that he's only doing it to pay for his stay at Harvard.
After training him thoroughly, Ben, Mickey, and the team begin a weekend-only regiment of flying to Vegas with fake IDs and winning lots of money. Here's something I don't understand, and I mean this of both the film characters and the real life MIT Blackjack team: Why would students from Massachusetts travel all the way to Vegas when Atlantic City is much easier to get to? Never mind--let's just focus on the film. Once in the casino, the team uses a very precise system of hand signals and code words: coupling your hands behind your back means the table is hot; touching the corner of your eye means, "We need to talk"; running your fingers through your hair is a signal to get out as fast as you can. Even words are used: "sweet" means that the cards are at plus sixteen; "eggs" means that they're at plus twelve; and so on and so forth. Every game scene actually makes the entire scheme look more obvious than clever. Even math geniuses would know to stir up the routine by employing different hand signals each and every time.
Incidentally, I've been calling these characters "math geniuses" only because the film tells us that that's what they are. Had we not been given this information, it would be hard to tell--the actors, while capable, never once made me believe they were any more academically well off than the average Joe. Not even Oscar winner Kevin Spacey could convince me, probably because I could focus on nothing other than how unlikable his character is; Mickey uses these students for his own financial gain, and this is for doing nothing besides "managing" the team. Eventually, the thrill of winning goes to Ben's head, making him unable to stop even after reaching his $300,000 goal. But as Mickey explained early on, they're in it to count, not to gamble. Ben doesn't care. At a certain point, he doesn't feel he needs Mickey anymore (for reasons I won't reveal). The rest of the team cautiously goes along with Ben, knowing that card counting is a very high-stakes game.
And this brings me to Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne), a menacing casino enforcer who will gladly beat card counters in dark rooms. Maybe he's cranky because he's just about out of a job; a new image detection system is quickly making him obsolete. Or maybe he doesn't understand the uncanny ability to watch the MIT team via surveillance when they supposedly stay in different hotels each time. I certainly didn't understand it; maybe I missed something along the way. Whatever the case, Williams is on to them soon enough, meaning that Ben has to find some other way to count cards if he wants the money he feels he deserves.
This is the kind of plot that sounds a lot better than it actually is. But "21" works in much the same way a casino does: it blindsides you with bright lights and loud noises, ultimately leaving you poorer than when you first entered. I didn't buy any of it, not the circumstances, not the developing relationship between Ben and Jill, not the relationship between Ben and his MIT friends Miles (Josh Gad) and Cam (Sam Golzari), who are nothing more than nerdy stereotypes. I certainly didn't buy the ending, and while I can't describe it in detail, I can say that it's so implausible and silly it's a wonder no one forced the filmmakers to re-shoot it. True story or not, "21" is a film no one can buy into, and that's a shame because the idea behind it is actually very interesting. Card counting is a calculated system, yet the film miscalculates from start to finish. Go figure.
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