21

johnny_ultimate

Here we have an example of a film that refuses to do anything interesting with an interesting story. The true story of a bunch of MIT students who, using the awesome power of mathematics, managed to crack Vegas and walk away with bucketloads of marked bills. 21, an undramatic dramatisation of the book Bringing Down the House, takes these events and throws out a mindless and almost offensively average piece of film-making.

Admittedly, the fact that it was produced by master of the mundane Brett Ratner triggered off warning bells as the opening credits and MGMT's likable 'Time to Pretend' play. Said warning bells were correct. What follows are 122 minutes of generic nonsense, which has been seen hundreds of times before, and dozens of times more competently.

There is nothing wrong with the occasional mindless 'heist' film (a fairly vague description for this movie, admittedly). But after Ocean's Eleven showed that an effortlessly cool and vibrant experience could be had from your average con-man story, the dull likes of 21 only seem more deplorable. It is a waste of talent, money and effort. Indeed, the cast features A-listers such as Laurence Fishburne and Kevin Spacey. Don't let their presence fool you though, as they simply play hammed up archetypes. They were clearly in it for the inevitable paycheck. The only other actor who has any sort of noticable screen presence is Kate Bosworth, and tbh that isn't entirely based on her acting abilities or her horribly one-dimensional character (the most deplorable and vapid kind of love interest). The rest of the characters are an insulting collection of clichés, the worst being the cringe-worthy 'fat nerd' best friend character, with his referencing of Star Wars and the like. All the depth of a kitchen sink.

The film continually seems condescending towards the audience. Like all films struggling to find a narrative voice, 21 employs a shallow and intrusive voiceover that only serves to hammer in the pretty damn obvious and shallow moral messages of the film. The direction by a one Robert Luketic (the director of previous classics like Legally Blonde, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! and Monster-in-Law) tries so hard to look impressive it is actually amusing. Instead, it is simply tired, sub-Fincher levels of post-production trickery, annoying over-use of montages and irksome tampering with time. Rubbish. And the use of digital film only makes things worse, making the whole thing look somewhat cheap and unpleasant. And don't get me started on the dialogue. The opening act in particular features some of the most insipid script-writing in quite sometime. There are certainly some inadvertant giggles here.

You will be lightly entertained by this light and breezy tale, but to be honest that isn't saying much. Even empty, shallow exercises can be far more worthwhile, so such a pointless exercise as this only emerges as more shallow and empty compared to superior contemporaries. The worst kind of bland.

Rb

What an awful review tbh and you're trying far, far too hard. Your review reads as a piece that is desperate to impress, yet it fails miserably. 2/10.

Just home from 21. Though some parts of the film were a bit cliché, I really enjoyed it overall. Thought it ran at a good pace, certainly in comparison with the utter shíte (such as Cloverfield) that has been hitting the cinemas here for the last while.

jobless

have to agree with RB_ie..... i enjoyed this film and wasnt disappointed at all....

i thought the voice over and explanation of their technique was very good to someone who would not have had any idea about blackjack/card counting...my girlfriend even said this and she had never heard of blackjack before.

By your review it looks like you were expecting 'There will be blood meets Casino'... and have been way too critical of this film.

Its by no means a classic but definately worth the admission fee if you want an entertaining film and your the kind of person thats doesnt analyse every single detail of it!

Al_Fernz

I'd agree with the last two posters OP.

Your review is way too pretentious. You're trying way too hard to be over-critical.

In a nutshell. Too cliched to be very good, but certainly entertaining. Not as good as the book but I was happy I went.

johnny_ultimate

I admit that I may have been too critical of this film, but I stand by my opinion that it is a shallow and empty film. I did find parts of it entertaining, but when there are plenty of vastly superior films out at the moment (even quite light fare such as Son of Rambow or In Bruges) I really don't think this is worth any effort to see. While I have seen far worse films in my life, 21 is just a dissapointingly mediocre one. The core story is very interesting, but I think the director's tampering with the story to make it more crowd-pleasing didn't work well. I haven't read the book, so was quite curious to see how the story played out, but on screen it was quite flat and undramatic. The story was still there, just not as fleshed out as it could have been.

Even within the Las Vegas / gambling genre, there are better examples: Ocean's Eleven or Thirteen again standing out. I just felt it was a lazy film, and apologies if I came across as pretentious in my initial review (which reading back I am quite guilty of), but sometimes simple entertainment value (of which this for me held only limited appeal - one or two decent twists, but overall a lot of clichés and the like) isn't enough to recommend a film. Again you could do worse, but you could do a lot better as well. I for one just don't think weak film-making, poor script writing and the like should be exused in cases such as this. Sorry for the overly critical review though.

IrishMike

The other posters were not criticising your opinion of the film just your delivery of the review.
It looks like you wrote the thing with a thesaurus in your right hand.
We are simple folk who like small words around these parts

Nolanger

What I didn't like was the fact that it was filmed using video cameras. Sure it will look great on DVD but on the big screen a lot of scenes appeared blurry and off focus.

Ay Cee

Haven't seen this yet but read the book when it first came out and thought "how has this not been made into a film yet".

Would people that have read the book recommend the film?

sunzz

Seriously, do you normally try this hard to come across as a vastly superior intellect whilst texting people?

STOP TRYING SO HARD OP!

johnny_ultimate

sunzz wrote: »

Seriously, do you normally try this hard to come across as a vastly superior intellect whilst texting people?

STOP TRYING SO HARD OP!

I fully accept that I over-wrote the review (which unfortunately descended into a rant due to my views on the film) but seriously I wasn't trying to 'come across as a vastly superior intellect'. I don't get your 'texting people' comment at all though. I admit that it was a poor review, but really wasn't trying to be condescending. I will calm down in future when writing such negative views, but all my content points still stand, even if they are overly excessive. I accept everyones criticisms, but really wasn't trying to condescend or act all superior like. Sorry again.

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

Death or Glory

I was looking forward to seeing this but you've all put me off it now!

tribulus

This was one of the few films I've seen where I've actually read the book it was based on. As such I was certainly kept entertained as previous posters have said but a bit disappointed that the second half of the film was completely different to the book - which I read in one night as I couldn't put it down.

I didn't see the need for the elaborate plot and flashbacks and thought it was trying too hard to have all the pieces fall into place at the end. I felt if it had stuck to the book more closely and of course applied to film well then it would have been far better.

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

zuutroy

Just back from it..sort of agree with OP..an interesting story I'm sure, but the film somehow managed to make it entrirely dull. Just never captured me at all. Film making by numbers, and I had to laugh when the crack team were in the cafe having a "high level debate" about the most basic blackjack strategy.
As a poker playing science nerd who likes popcorn films I thought there was no chance I wouldn't enjoy this no matter how cheesy it was....I was wrong!

Makaveli

sunzz wrote: »

Seriously, do you normally try this hard to come across as a vastly superior intellect whilst texting people?

STOP TRYING SO HARD OP!

Yeah, ffs Johnny, what were you thinking? Next time put some smileys in there and maybe a lolcat or something. Srsly like, kthnxbai.

Cianos

I thought the review was well written. I haven't seen the film so I've no idea if I agree with it or not.

And why is the use of a thesaurus a bad thing? So somebody takes an effort in what they are writing and is shot down because their piece isn't 'normal'. Bah, another example of Irish begrudgery.

Makaveli

It's what happens when people wander out of After Hours.

tylerdurden94

All i can say is BRUTAL movie!

Wacker

I too am going to take this as an opportunity to throw my hat over the wall and back up Johnny Ultimate. I thought his post was excellent (in fact himself and Snyper are the only posters on boards that I expect to post consistently good stuff). I fully agree with his synopsis of the film, which was just as uninteresting as I feared it would be.

I find it quite dissapointing that a poster is being attacked for eloquence.

faceman

I dont think it's as bad as some here say, but it had a desperate ending and it was a film that just didnt try hard at all with little character depth. I didnt like the way it was shot, looked awful.

I hated all of the ocean films btw.

johnny_ultimate

faceman wrote: »

I dont think it's as bad as some here say, but it had a desperate ending and it was a film that just didnt try hard at all with little character depth. I didnt like the way it was shot, looked awful.

I hated all of the ocean films btw.

Think it was the digital camera that made it look so awful. Really just made it look cheap. Ending was particularly woeful I must agree - probably the chessiest thing I have seen in quite some time.

And its not really that it is an awful film like Manos or something: it is more that it is just very, very mediocre to the point where it actually just becomes bad. Its just that I don't think a film that is this dull should be applauded or defended: IMO, an audience shouldn't be content with mere averageness.

faceman

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Think it was the digital camera that made it look so awful. Really just made it look cheap. Ending was particularly woeful I must agree - probably the chessiest thing I have seen in quite some time.

And its not really that it is an awful film like Manos or something: it is more that it is just very, very mediocre to the point where it actually just becomes bad. Its just that I don't think a film that is this dull should be applauded or defended: IMO, an audience shouldn't be content with mere averageness.

It had a "tv show" feel to it at times due to the way it shot in my opinion.

Unfortunately mainstream film is predominantly average nowadays. The days of the auteurs are long over in studios.

By the way, fair balls for posting your review in the style you did. Although i dont agree with some of things you say, keep at it. Dont mind the slagging. no one can be expected to get their style right at first. Like others here, i love to discuss film and this is what its all about!

lorweld

Omg! I've being singing this films praizes to everybody. Imho I thought it was one of the best films I've seen in a long time. However I was a bit dissappointed with the ending.I suppose its a matter of tastes! I'm off to buy the book!

MooseJam

when people say digital camera is it the same as cloverfield ?

Eoin

Do people really think the book was that good to begin with? I certainly wouldn't call it a "classic".

Edit - apologies for talking about the book, in the films forum.

Mossy Monk

I watched this tonight and I was bitterly dissappointed. A load of **** from start to finish.

sunzz

**** Film

Eoin

Talk about two extremes of film review styles!