| | | Inspired by the True Story of Five Students Who Changed the Game Forever.
Features: DVD, Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 2.40:1, Dolby Digital (5.1), English, Subtitled, French, Spanish, Dubbed & Subtitled
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.
"...a slickly polished package that should appeal to anyone who's ever dreamed of beating the odds." Joe Leydon, Variety
"...an irresistible premise...a thoroughly entertaining picture." Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
"The Ocean's Eleven: The College Years mood makes for a breezy good time..." Olly Richards, Empire
"...Spacey and a gifted young cast use smarts to deal audiences a winning hand." Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
"...makes for some slick escapist fantasy. Even if, and because, the fantasy has its roots in something real." Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer
Editor's Note
Inspired by a true story, 21 mixes Las Vegas casino wheeling and dealing with college-kid angst: think OCEAN'S ELEVEN via THE PAPER CHASE. Kevin Spacey is crafty MIT professor Micky Rosa, who trains brainiac students to count cards and then flies them out to Vegas to raid the blackjack tables between classes. At first they rake in a bundle, but then catch the unwanted attention of tough-guy security chief, Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne) who wants to prove himself before he's replaced by face recognition software. Super math genius Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) originally joins the ring in order to come up with the $300,000 he needs for tuition money, but he's also gaga over the ring's resident babe, Jill (Kate Bosworth). When he finds out Professor Rosa hasn't been dealing entirely from a straight deck, Ben's high-end shopping spree dreams turn sour (though card counting is not illegal) and the battle of wits is on, no second chances given. Spacey is in his preternaturally calm, morally compromised element, stealing scenes left and right; Fishburne brings the hangdog depth; and everything bubbles over the 24-karat rocks, courtesy of director Robert Luketic (LEGALLY BLONDE). 21 is based on the bestseller BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE by Ben Mezrich.
| Features | Audio: English, French, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | Dubbed: French, Spanish | | Featurettes: 21 - The Advantage Player Featuring The Cast Of 21, Basic Strategy - A Complete Film Journal, & Money Plays - A Tour Of The Good Life | | Filmmakers' Audio Commentary | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, French, Spanish |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Sony Pictures |
| Release Date: 7/22/2008 |
| Running Time: 123 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2008 | | Catalog ID: 21455 | | UPC: 00043396214552 | | Number of Discs: 2 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Anamorphic Widescreen 2.40:1 |
| Cast & Crew | Laurence Fishburne | | Kevin Spacey | | Jim Sturgess | | Kate Bosworth | | Russell Carpenter - Director of Photography | | Michael De Luca - Producer | | William S. Beasley - Executive Producer | | Peter Steinfeld - Screenwriter | | Allan Loeb - Screenwriter | | Brett Ratner - Executive Producer | | Ben Mezrich - Source Writer | | Dana Brunetti - Producer | | Kevin Spacey - Producer | | Ryan Kavanaugh - Executive Producer | | Dave Sardy - Composer | | Robert Luketic - Director |
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| | Professional Reviews | Total Film
3 stars out of 5 -- "[With] some scene-stealing from producer Spacey that's a lesson in larceny all by itself." 05/01/2008 p.50USA Today
"It has some strong performances, most notably by Jim Sturgess, Laurence Fishburne and Kevin Spacey..." 03/28/2008 Rolling Stone
3 stars out of 4 -- "[I]t's a kick to watch Spacey and a gifted young cast use smarts to deal audiences a winning hand." 04/03/2008 p.73 Entertainment Weekly
"[A] clever and novel card-sharp thriller....21 has enough good twists to keep jolting ahead." -- Grade: B 04/04/2008 p.42-43 Empire
3 stars out of 5 -- "Luketic places the film in capable hands with his two leads. Bosworth is sweetly determined....Spacey is clearly enjoying himself immensely..." 05/01/2008 p.54 Sight and Sound
"[A] film that offers viewers the thrill of breaking the bank at Las Vegas....Blown up on the big screen, 21 succeeds....Clearly a fascinating story." 07/01/2008 p.80 Reel.com 6 of 10
With the ongoing popularity of high-stakes poker, greenlighting a film like 21 would appear to be a Tinseltown no-brainer. After all, you've got the true story of how a group of MIT students broke the bank in Vegas by applying their highly trained analytical minds toward counting cards, beating Sin City's blackjack tables in the process. It's a mega-dose of Mensa wish fulfillment. But leave it to Hollywood to fiddle with the facts. Ben Mezrich's non-fiction book entitled Bringing Down the House centered on a group of mostly Asian geniuses grifting casinos for all the cash they could. Somehow, that translated into a cast consisting of Kevin Spacey, Jim Sturgess, and Kate Bosworth...With Fishburne all firebrand bluster, and everyone else neatly falling into the background, 21 trips and stumbles toward its inevitable showdown/switcheroo finale. If you can't see the last 30 minutes as one elongated ruse, you haven't been to a mainstream movie in quite a while. Indeed, director Robert Luketic (of Legally Blonde and Monster-In-Law fame) borrows too many cinematic chestnuts from the formula film vault, missing many opportunities to make this material more electric and engaging. What we end up with is a genial, generic effort attached to an intrinsically interesting premise. - Bill Gibron
ReelViews 6 of 10
21 is a perfect example of how something that's "based" on a true story can nevertheless exist mainly in the realm of fiction. While it's true that the source material for the movie, Ben Mezrich's Bringing Down the House relates events that actually happened, screenwriters Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb have fictionalized the entire story, leaving intact only the central idea that a group of MIT students devised a card-counting scheme that allowed them to fleece the Vegas casinos. And, while I'm firm believer in the adage "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story, " 21 doesn't spin a good enough yarn to justify all the changes. In fact, when one character indicates to another that he started out smart then got sloppy and stupid, he might have been referring to the script...Another disappointing aspect of 21 is its sluggish pace. The high-energy Vegas setting doesn't increase the wattage of the production. The movie is a little over two hours in length but feels longer. Some of the movie's last-act "action" sequences have been inserted primarily as a way to liven things up, but they're so pointless and derivative that all they do is drag out the running length. (Are we really supposed to be thrilled by scenes of Sturgess and Bosworth being chased by bad guys through a series of casino kitchens?) - James Berardinelli
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