~ Don’t Gamble just read the cards ~

21 is an action thriller film which was released last year. I had this DVD through the post on Lovefilm at the weekend as the plot sounded interesting. I remember choosing this film to put on my list for two main reasons. One after reading the plot it sounded worth a watch and second I am a huge fan of Kevin Spacey and like all of the films and characters he plays. I also found it interesting that Kevin helped produce this movie as well as star in it. So this weekend my mum and I sat down and watched 21 which I was neither impressed nor disappointed with. I hadn’t actually heard of this film before finding it on Lovefilm which I am quite surprised about really I am not sure if it was out at the cinema for long or it was advertised a lot but I hadn’t come across it. From the plot and the front cover shown on the Lovefilm website I got the main idea of the film and it sounded quite action packed and interesting. The director’s name also sounded familiar but I am rubbish at remembering names so when I looked up his name I did find out he has directed a few known films but as I didn’t know which films he did until after watching this didn’t have any expectations of a high standard or low.
Apart from Kevin Spacey I did not recognise any of the supporting actors except one which I will share with you later.

INFO

Director- Robert Luketic

Robert is a young Australian director and even though he has only directed a few movies most of them are well known and are in my opinion pretty successful.
Some of these films include- ‘Legally Blonde’ (2001), ‘Monster in law’ (2005) and ‘Win a date with Ted Hamilton’ (2004), all of his film seem to be comedies, but 21 was slightly different to his normal pattern and even though it includes humour it is more a thriller than a comedy.
Robert is also filming a new film for next year’s release called Five Killers which sounds interesting. As previously said although he has not done many productions, Robert has won two awards for his work- in 1998 he won a Jury award for Best Student Comedy for his film- ‘Titsiana Booberini and in 2002 he won the Young Hollywood Award for the Class Act of the Hottest young film maker.

Writers- Peter Steinfield and Allan Loeb
Produced- Kevin Spacey, Brett Ratner, Dana Brunetti and Michael De Luca.
Release Date- 11 April 2008 (UK)
Runtime- 123 Mins
Company- Columbia Pictures
Certificate- 12A

~ PLOT ~

A group of high school students have a talented gift of memory and counting cards which Professor Micky Rosa is in charge of. Ben Campbell a bright, intelligent student and stumbles on the group and is talked into joining them as he finds out that this group of five kids fly to Vegas every weekend to count cards and win a lot of money. The life seems great, school during the week and making a lot of money at the weekend. Ben only agrees to do the card counting for a few weeks so he can gain the money he need to get to Harvard, but as the money floods in he starts loosing his life back home and starts to get too greedy.

~ CAST~

MAIN CHARACTERS

Ben Campbell – Jim Sturgess

Ben Campbell is our protagonist that we follow throughout the film. He is a bright A achieving student who has good friends but he seems to be bored with his life. Even though he is shown to be one of the best card counters he forgets that he cannot get greedy. Ben has to learn a hard lesson to know what is right and wrong in life.
Jim Sturgess is a young English actor who found his way to acting and made his debut in 2007 with the film ‘Across the Universe’. Other than this he has starred in the historical film, ‘The other Boleyn girl’ (2008) and is in filming for two films to be released next year. He has also appeared in television programmes with a few episodes from series like, -A touch of frost ‘and ‘Heartbeat’.

Prof. Micky Rosa

Prof. Micky Rosa is a clever and rich teacher. He is an ex card counter and teaches young kids how to follow this talent to success. At the start he seems friendly, interesting and a man to be jealous of. There is much that the kids don’t know about his past as a card counter which will be revealed to them.
Later on he seems to care nothing more than getting as much money out of the kids as possible.
Kevin Spacey is properly one of my favourite Actors of all time and I love every film he is involved in. He always plays his roles brilliantly and he does play all different kinds of characters which is why I think he is very talented. For those who do not know his work he has starred in many successful films such as- ‘Seven’ (1995 – also starring Brad Pitt), ‘The Usual Suspects’ (1995), ‘The Negotiator’ (1998) and many more. He has started to get more involved with his films like producing them.

Jill Taylor – Kate Bosworth

Jill is the love interest and main female character in the story. She has been a part of the group for a while before Ben joins and is the best female card counter. She is clever, quick witted and uses her charm to get the prize. She has a connection with Ben instantly when they are living the dream life in Vegas.
Apart from this Kate has starred in a few well known films including the lead role of Louis Lane in ‘Superman Returns’ (2006) and ‘Win a date with Ted Hamilton (2004).

Cole Williams – Laurence Fishburne

The other actor I instantly recognised on the cast list is Laurence Fishburne who is another great actor and I like many of his films. His character in this, Cole Williams is a security man for the top Casino in Las Vegas and also has a past of counting cards which he now uses to catch new players. He is a strong, knowledgeable man and has a violent and aggressive nature.
For those not familiar with his work he has starred in a lot of films, which include top movies such as- ‘The Matrix’ (1999), ‘MI3’ (2006) and ‘Fantastic Four’ (2007).

Other Characters

Choi (Student) – Aaron Yoo
Kianna (Student) – Liza Lapira
Jimmy Fisher – Jacob Pitts
Terry – Jack McGee
Miles Connoly – Josh Gad
Ellen Campbell – Helen Carey
Cam Azazi – Sam Golzari

~ Casino’s ~

As the film was mainly to do with conning Casinos I didn’t think it was going to go down well with them when this film was released. However major casinos backed the film and MGM Studios who Sunset Strip casino was conned out of Millions said they would help finance it maybe to show others that card counting will not work in their casinos. Also even though the movie shows card counting as being successful, it is described as being more difficult than shown on the film and that you will be caught as people get too greedy to be careful.

~ Opinions ~

Acting and Characters

I thought that the film had a pretty good set of actors and actresses and the characters were shown very well. Kevin Spacey was brilliant as always and his character was really acted well. The dark, sinister ways of the Prof. is shown in a great way. I think Spacey plays bad guys really well and he achieved it in this. Laurence also plays a brilliant role as he usually does and his character brings a whole new meaning to card counting. He is successful in making the character aggressive and scary. I enjoyed his character especially at the end and the comedy he also brings to the film.
The main protagonist Ben was also good, I liked the character and his development through the film is shown just right. He is a very likable character as he is shown as abit of a geek at the start but this quickly changes. I liked the way his character gores through so many changes and events through the short space of the movie and I think you feel really involved in his emotions and life.
The other cast members performed well and I think they fitted their roles. They were believable in their parts and I like the variety of characters and people that wee included.

~ Narrative ~

The events of Casino’s being conned have been around for a long time and this film again is based on a true event. The film shows the dangerous of the consequences and what cheating can do to ruin your life. If everything seems too good to be true it generally is and in this it shows this well. The story is based on the novel- ‘Bringing down the house’ but is apparently nothing like it. I haven’t read the book but comments about the film shows that it didn’t follow it.
The plot was quite simple; a group go and cheat to get money in black jack. There are a few other sub plots twisted in such as the romance between Ben and Jill, the break down of Ben’s life back in reality and how each character changes. I did find the plot interesting and it did have a good pace but it wasn’t anything that stood out from other films.
I did like how some of the character shad secrets in their pasts which crept up nicely in the film, the link between certain characters were shown in an interesting way. The ending was pretty good and I was satisfied that it ended in the right way.

~ Filming ~

The visuals were good and there were nice locations. The Vegas scenes were bright, colourful and fast which shows the busy lives people led there. The camera angles showed all of the best parts of the city and it portrayed Vegas as I thought it would be like. I did think the way it flicked from the Vegas world to the reality of school life was good.
The filming, fast shots and angles were done as best they could have been showing the reactions at the right times and trying to keep you involved in all of the characters.

~ Overall ~

Even though I thought it has a good, simple plot and interesting characters I wasn’t too impressed with the film. It is predictable and I didn’t feel surprised or really intrigued during it. It was an average film with some good actors which I think could have been a lot better. The film itself did therefore receive mainly negative reviews when it was released and has a rotten tomato rating of 35%. I don’t think it was a film I would go and buy but if you get a chance to rent it I would suggest you have a look if there is nothing better to watch.

One positive comment about the film was that I thought it had a pretty good soundtrack to it. It kept the action buzzing and interesting. The soundtrack can be found on leading stores online-

Soundtrack

1. The Rolling Stones—"You Can't Always Get What You Want" (Remixed by Soulwax) (6:07)
2. MGMT—"Time to Pretend" (Super Clean Version) (4:20)
3. LCD Soundsystem—"Big Ideas" (5:41)
4. D. Sardy featuring Liela Moss—"Giant" (3:42)
5. Amon Tobin—"Always" (3:38)
6. Peter Bjorn and John—"Young Folks" (4:37)
7. Junkie XL featuring Electrocute—"Mad Pursuit" (4:16)
8. Get Shakes—"Sister Self Doubt" (4:22)
9. The Aliens—"I Am The Unknown" (5:27)
10. Rihanna—"Shut Up And Drive" (3:34)
11. Knivez Out—"Alright" (3:31)
12. Domino—"Tropical Moonlight" (3:28)
13. Unkle—"Hold My Hand" (4:58)
14. Mark Ronson featuring Kasabian—"L.S.F. (Lost Souls Forever)" (3:32)
15. Broadcast—"Tender Buttons" (2:51)

DVD

I have found the DVD on play.com for £4.99 which isn’t a bad price but I properly still wouldn’t buy it. This does include some special features such as a commentary and the filming of the movie.

Thanks for reading- blackmagicstar4- may 09. published on ciao and dooyoo x