21

Based on Ben Mezrich’s predictable yet comparatively masterful book Bringing Down the House, 21 follows brilliant MIT math student Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) as he’s invited to join an underground card-counting operation and subsequently experiences the highs (and inevitable lows) of high-stakes gambling. It’s an exceedingly familiar storyline that could’ve been used as a springboard for something fresh and interesting; in the hands of director Robert Luketic and screenwriters Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb, however, the film quickly devolves into an interminable mess of hoary cliches and stale conventions (ie a trying-on-clothes montage? Really?) The perfunctory performances ensure that the energy level remains virtually non-existent from start to finish, while Luketic’s complete and utter lack of style only exacerbates the movie’s various problems (and this is to say nothing of his woefully misguided decision to eschew film and shoot digitally, which ultimately lends the proceedings a low-rent and downright unpleasant visual sensibility). The end result is an egregiously slick effort that’s about as complex as an episode of Las Vegas, with the key difference being that 21 lumbers along for an almost excruciating 123 minutes (seriously, the film just refuses to end).

* out of ****