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7521 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.
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7521 makes for some slick escapist fantasy. Even if, and because, the fantasy has its roots in something real.
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75The 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.
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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.
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70Picture 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.
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63A predictable moral tale enacted by blandly pretty young things who bear little resemblance to the average brainiac.
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60The 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.
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60Spacey's engaging for a while in one of his patented double-edged, sharky roles.
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5821 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.
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5021 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.
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50Except for Spacey's talent, elements don't add up.
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50The 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
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50A slick, shallow and thoroughly generic caper flick.
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50A movie with an irresistible premise that ultimately collapses around the whole issue of motivation. Until it does, this is a thoroughly entertaining picture.
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50While not exactly a zero, 21 lags and fails to measure up dramatically.
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5021 doesn't spin a good enough yarn.
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50There 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.
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50What 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.
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50A thoroughly ordinary drama of temptation, dubious redemption and easy revenge.
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50What 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.
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Very little adds up in 21.
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50No 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.
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50The more moralistic 21 gets, the less enjoyable it is.
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42Short of counting the cards out loud, these geniuses seem to do everything they can to get caught.
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40Spacey, 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.
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40Greed 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.
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40The story may be based on real events, but most of it feels patently false.
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38The 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.
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A movie that wastes a lot of time and money and really, REALLY shoulda stayed in Vegas.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 24 out of 46
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Mixed: 10 out of 46
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Negative: 12 out of 46
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