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21
EMAILPRINTColumbia Pictures (Sony)

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 29 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 59 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by:
Ben Mezrich (book "Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions")
Allan Loeb
Peter Steinfeld
Directed by: Robert Luketic
Release Date:
Theatrical: March 28, 2008
DVD: July 22, 2008
Running Time: 123 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for some violence, and sexual content including partial nudity
Starring Jim Sturgess, Kate Bosworth, Laurence Fishburne, Kevin Spacey, Liza Lapira, Josh Gad, Aaron Yoo, and Sam Golzari
Ben Campbell is a shy, brilliant MIT student who, needing to pay school tuition, finds the answers in the cards. He is recruited to join a group of the school's most gifted students that heads to Vegas every weekend armed with fake identities and the know-how to turn the odds at blackjack in their favor. With unorthodox math professor and stats genius Micky Rosa leading the way, they crack the code. By counting cards and employing an intricate system of signals, the team can beat the casinos big-time. Seduced by the money, the Vegas lifestyle, and his smart and sexy teammate, Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth), Ben begins to push the limits. Though counting cards isn't illegal, the stakes are high, and the challenge becomes not only keeping the numbers straight, but staying one step ahead of the casinos' menacing enforcer, Cole Williams. (Columbia Pictures)
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Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
21 drags itself to a climax that puts credulity in splints. So what? In a multiplex of dumb-luck hits, it's a kick to watch Spacey and a gifted young cast use smarts to deal audiences a winning hand.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The fun of 21 is the way that this sharp, hyperaware star in the making, his face as readable as a mood ring, pours us into an adrenalized cocktail of fear, desire, and mental buzz.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
21 makes for some slick escapist fantasy. Even if, and because, the fantasy has its roots in something real.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter John DeFore
Escapist moviegoers happy to live out a flashy fantasy get a brief comeuppance and still walk away from the table with a little something in their pockets.
Read Full Review >Variety Joe Leydon
Picture shrewdly shuffles together attractive young leads, cagey screen vets and a fantasy-fulfillment scenario in a slickly polished package that should appeal to anyone who's ever dreamed of beating the odds.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
A predictable moral tale enacted by blandly pretty young things who bear little resemblance to the average brainiac.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
Spacey's engaging for a while in one of his patented double-edged, sharky roles.
Read Full Review >Empire Olly Richards
The Ocean’s Eleven: The College Years mood makes for a breezy good time, even if there is, like Vegas, precious little substance beneath the glitz.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
21 isn't insultingly stupid. But there's a gap between what we're told about its characters and what we can see for ourselves, a gap that gets larger and more frustrating as the film goes on.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
A movie with an irresistible premise that ultimately collapses around the whole issue of motivation. Until it does, this is a thoroughly entertaining picture.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
The more moralistic 21 gets, the less enjoyable it is.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust
What might have been a complex story dealing with greed and high-stakes betrayal among the young intellectual elite in America's gaming playground is instead treated as a slick, glossy romp.
Read Full Review >Premiere Ryan Stewart
There are moments where Spacey and Bosworth have their fun in spite of the film -- they both adopt Southern "characters" as disguises at one point, which is a hoot -- but overall, 21 is a busted hand.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
No movie with Kevin Spacey as a heartless prick can be all bad, but this gambling thriller, based on Ben Mezrich's nonfiction book "Bringing Down the House," hasn't got much else going for it.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
21 isn’t pretentious, exactly, but it’s damn close, and in trying to whip up a melodramatic morality tale the film becomes an increasingly flabby slog.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
A thoroughly ordinary drama of temptation, dubious redemption and easy revenge.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
What a big cheat of a movie. Wanting to be everything to everybody – a tough gambling picture, a revenge-of-the-nerds fantasy, a Vegas caper flick, a sweet little romance, a simple morality tale – 21 is just a bet-hedger dealing from multiple decks, designed to leave you with an occasional tidbit to like but nothing at all to love.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
While not exactly a zero, 21 lags and fails to measure up dramatically.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
The early scenes are flashy fun, and Sturgess (handsome Jude in "Across the Universe") makes a convincing math geek. But the requisite romance and Hollywood-style ending feel as fake as the air allegedly pumped into casinos to revive flagging players
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Short of counting the cards out loud, these geniuses seem to do everything they can to get caught.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
The story may be based on real events, but most of it feels patently false.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
Greed is good and comes without a hint of conscience in 21, a feature-length bore about some smarty-pants who take Vegas for a ride.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
Spacey, whose Trigger Street Productions is one of the film's producers, digs into his role as the story's snarky mastermind and lure, yet it's all the kind of stuff we've seen him deliver in so many movies before.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
The movie's chief audience, consequently, will probably be gullible and young, responding to the cliches only because they haven't seen them before. They have a word in Vegas for these people: Suckers.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Robert Wilonsky
A movie that wastes a lot of time and money and really, REALLY shoulda stayed in Vegas.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.1 (out of 10) based on 59 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
George M gave it a5:
The style is definately there in this film....its glitzy and well polished, but thats about it for this movie....looks good but leaves a bad taste in my mouth. watching these characters work the system and win boat-loads of money is what fantasies are made of, who wouldn't want to do something like this and get away with it all the while living it up and having the time of your life??? unfortunately its the last half of the film that made me lose interest and how the story and ALL characters seemed to get dumber and dumber which in turn made the movie DUMB. i haven't felt so hollow and uninterested by the end of a movie in a while.
Tyler D. gave it an8:
A very entertaining movie. The ending was extremely clever and presented in a great way. 21 entertained throughout with its multiple twists and turns, great acting, and interesting plot. Highly recommended!
Battle Glue gave it a3:
Utter crap. Supposedly intelligent characters are ruined by the army of hacks that wrote or directed this. Imagine watching a documentary about Einstein, no picture the director making him struggle to open a milk carton. That is how simple the movie makers made this movie.
Canaan B gave it a4:
This movie certainly had some potential, and I didn't think it was a complete waste of time. But really, there is little substance here, and I cannot shake the anti-gender / race thing going on in terms of being the BIG player. The 'romance' in the film is lukewarm at best. Also, I wish I knew more about counting before going in, since you feel like an outsider desperately trying to figure out how they are doing it during the film.
Lyle S gave it a6:
It wasn't a complete waste of time or a waste of my red box dollar.
Dylan D. gave it a10:
Excellent, excellent movie. A good showing from the young cast. Sure, it didn't stay to the book, although I really don't care because I don't sit and endlessly nit pick at stuff no one really cares about. And why am I not surprised that the race card was thrown in? I'm going to assume that there were more high caliber Caucasian actors than Asian actors. You would be a terrible director if you decided to take mediocrity over continuity. People grow up and learn to enjoy films for what they are. And this, was a good flick.
Justin C gave it a4:
A poor movie. The camera work was...questionable at best. They tried to make something boring exciting, and it ended up giving me a headache. (I loved the Bourne movies camera work because the style suited that genre) The acting was bland, they should have gotten someone better to play Campbell. I think Jake Gyllenhaal would have been great as Ben. Spacey's performance was one of his worst, perhaps because his character was boring. He just felt censored, as if he was holding back. Kate did fine. Overall a movie I'm disappointed I paid money to see. Watch only if you have nothing better to do.
