21 (2008)

Release date: 2008-03-28
Country: USA
Language: English
Director: Robert Luketic
Production Co: Columbia Pictures, Relativity Media, Trigger Street Productions
Genre: Crime, Drama, History, Thriller
Rating: 6.8/10
Length: 2h 3min

Storyline

Ben Campbell is a young, highly intelligent, student at M.I.T. in Boston who strives to succeed. Wanting a scholarship to transfer to Harvard School of Medicine with the desire to become a doctor, Ben learns that he cannot afford the $300,000 for the four to five years of schooling as he comes from a poor, working-class background. But one evening, Ben is introduced by his unorthodox math professor Micky Rosa into a small but secretive club of five. Students Jill, Choi, Kianna, and Fisher, who are being trained by Professor Rosa of the skill of card counting at blackjack. Intrigued by the desire to make money, Ben joins his new friends on secret weekend trips to Las Vegas where, using their skills of code talk and hand signals, they have Ben make hundreds of thousands of dollars in winning blackjack at casino after casino. Ben only wants to make enough money for the tuition to Harvard and then back out. But as fellow card counter, Jill Taylor, predicts, Ben becomes corrupted by greed ...

Plot Keywords

based on true story, blackjack, gambling, security guard, single mother, subway, video surveillance, widow, airplane ticket, salesclerk, robotics, rise and fall, ring, restroom, premarital sex, nonlinear timeline, nightclub, mother son relationship, airplane trip, beating

Short Review

As ever with gambling films, it's difficult to convey the thrill of winning at second hand; the human-interest complications are unconvincing and Spacey himself, I'm afraid, is a lugubrious and deadening presence.