21

"Winner, winner, chicken dinner". Those are the words that open the movie 21 along with a brief history of their significance to the game of blackjack. This begins our immersion into the world of Vegas blackjack as experienced by a group of card counting MIT students.

The movie follows the story of an MIT student named Ben Foster who's currently saddled by the impending costs of Harvard Medical School. He gets invited to join a clandestine group of other MIT students who are led by a charismatic math professor in their endeavors to break the bank in Las Vegas. Once he joins and learns the card counting system, things start looking up for Ben financially but nothing that perfect lasts forever, right?

The movie is based on the real life story of a group of MIT students who really do learn to count cards and really do successfully win a ton of money in Vegas. Their story was brought to attention by Ben Mezrich's book Bringing Down the House which detailed their rise and fall in the world of high stakes blackjack and was an instant success landing on the New York Times bestseller list.

The movie is directed by Robert Luketic who so-far, has stuck to the romantic comedy genre, gives us a really well paced, tight drama. His previous films, while funny (Legally Blond, Win a Date With Tad Hamilton) didn't really give us much substance to look at. This movie is an interesting departure for him and shows that he's capable of branching out. He does a good job of balancing the comedic moments (of which there are a few) with the more dramatic and tense.

Jim Sturgess who plays the film's lead role does a great job. He's currently on everyone's radar as an up and comer in Hollywood right now since his role in Julie Taymor's awesome Across the Universe. He's charismatic and instantly likable in this role. He's got great appeal as a kind of "everyman" who guys can relate to and women can swoon over. He has definitely increased his marketability with this movie.

The supporting cast includes the always brilliant Kevin Spacey and the perenially cool Laurence Fishburne. They both as usual do a bang up job as the professor/mentor and the Las Vegas security officer respectively. The rest of the supporting cast (including a healthy looking Kate Bosworth) are passable but none are outstanding or particularly memorable.

The major problem with this movie is with the ending. Now, trying not to give too much away...the movie just sort of seems a little tidy at the end. That's not to say that everyone's story turns out well or that our hero gets everything he set out for, but everything seemed just a bit too neat and compact and wrapped up. Now, I haven't read the book so I don't know the "real story" so maybe I'm being a bit critical, but I'm just saying that in my experience life is never that easy.