21

Rating: 2.5/5
Starring: Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth
Directed by: Robert Luketic
Release Date: March 28, 2008

As a movie enthusiast, I consider myself pretty knowledgeable when it comes to actors and their recent performances, so it should have been a smack across the face when I couldn’t recall the last Kevin Spacey performance I enjoyed since “Pay It Forward.”

After a quick sojourn to IMDb, I found the reason for my transgression: There hasn’t been a good Kevin Spacey performance since “Pay It Forward.” Some of you may point to David Gale as an exception, but let’s be honest, this is the Kevin Spacey of “The Usual Suspects,” and “American Beauty.” David Gale, Schmavid Gale.

That streak of mediocrity/disappointment is in no danger after his performance in “21.” The film, based on a true story by way of a book by Ben Mezrich, is a story of too-smart-for-their-own-good Massachusetts Institute of Technology students learning how to beat the Vegas system by counting cards.

The film revolves around one extremely special student, Ben (Jim Sturgess of “Across the Universe” fame), an MIT senior with early acceptance to Harvard Medical School who’s short on tuition money and needs an exclusive scholarship in order to go. He meets with a prominent professor and member of the scholarship committee at Harvard, who tells him that his 4.0 GPA, leadership in student government and prize-winning entry into a prestigious science fair entitle him to…absolutely nothing. The last winner, remarks the professor, was a one-legged blind Korean immigrant.

Does this sound mildly familiar? Ben comes from a single-parent household with barely enough income to put him through private university and nowhere near the income needed for three years of medical school and beyond. How many of us faced this in the college admissions process? We were great students, participated in many extracurriculars and led them with flying colors, and yet were no match for the student from New York City who spent her entire junior year leading a research project in Kenya or the student from Japan who had performed with the Boston Pops. Ben’s best friend asks him, “What makes you special?” I have the same question for the movie as a whole.

Ben is forced to find ways to make his tuition money outside of the scholarship and his recent promotion at J. Press to $8 per hour. He is approached by sketchy Professor Spacey to join his underground group of brilliant MIT students in learning how to count cards and swindle Vegas for hundreds of thousands of dollars through blackjack, the only beatable casino game. Ben joins with the condition that as soon as he reaches his tuition goal, he’s quitting. Right, because making money without working for it is such an easy addiction to give up. Along the way, Ben falls for Kate Bosworth’s character (major daddy issue alert) and confronts Laurence Fishburne (in a clearly for-the-paycheck performance). The audience is asked to root for Ben, but really, why am I rooting for the poor MIT genius who figured out how to use his intellect to make oodles and oodles of free money? Not while I’m watching my meal points slowly dwindle way before the semester ends, with no hope in sight.

Kevin Spacey as the clichéd professor/mentor fails to enthrall. He tries to establish himself as a “cool” professor by quoting “Ferris Bueller.” “Anyone. Anyone. Bueller.” he cleverly remarks. Regardless of his corny lines (“The best thing about Vegas-you can become anything you want”), this Danny Ocean-wannabe fails to live up to the single most important rule of any successful Vegas flick: Never underestimate your enemy. We see him overplaying his hand from the start, predicting only worse things to come as the movie progresses.

The movie is clearly aimed at the college crowd. An indie-tinged soundtrack along with a romantic storyline of geek-meets-goddess does nothing in hiding this blatant marketing. How is it possible, though, that the director so misjudged the sympathies of collegians across the world? Whether or not you identify with Ben’s troubles in distinguishing himself before the scholarship committee, you would be hard-pressed to support his endeavor to make more money than he knows what to do with only to blow it on Gucci suits and expensive strip clubs. I would be willing to forgive the ridiculous assumptions the director makes if it weren’t for the low-quality acting that plagues “21″ like a bad run of luck. I anticipated a crummy Vegas thriller when I went in, but with at least some semblance of reputable acting based on the cast list. What I got was a poorly acted, poorly scripted Vegas thriller with a slightly suspenseful ending. Instead of spending $9 and your Saturday night going to see “21,” I suggest flipping through whatever thriller TNT or TBS is showing for the fourth time that day. You’ll save yourself gas, money and me in your head saying repeatedly, “I told you so!” However, if you’re free Friday night, you can see “21″ for free thanks to the fine folks at Filmboard. Be at the Clocktower at 5 p.m. to pick up your ticket.

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