.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

Counting cards is a quick two word summation of the new movie 21 based on the best selling book, Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions by Ben Mezrich.

21 stars Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe) as Ben Campbell, a young M.I.T. student that's smarter with mathematical problems than my pocket calculator. Ben is trying to get into Medical School and requires finances in excess of $300,000 if accepted. That makes him just desperate enough for teacher and card counter Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey of Superman Returns and Beyond the Sea) to recruit in an effort to use his mathematical skills at the blackjack tables in Vegas. Aiding and abetting in the scheme are a group of elite students that include the blonde bombshell Jill, played by Kate Bosworth (Superman Returns and Beyond the Sea). Jill will play the female interest in the story and the apple in Ben's eyes when not glazed with hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs.

Blackjack is not exactly the most exciting spectator sport. Let's face it, you can turn on your television and probably find a poker game on somewhere, but blackjack? Nope, just not enough interest and excitement around two cards that can total twenty one. So surrounding a film around the yawn inducing game is a task in itself.

I have to hand it to director Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde) who does enough with his actors and with slow motioned card flips and visual style to keep us intrigued and - dare I say it - energized. When the team gets rolling and things are going good, you are rooting for what is essentially the bad guys. Or are they? We are put in this moral dilemma when Micky reminds us that counting cards is not illegal. It's just that casino's kinda frown upon anyone having an edge other than the house.

That doesn't seem to matter to head of security Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne). Working at the Planet Hollywood Hotel and Casino, Williams feels the pressure of being replaced by new Face Recognition software. Catching these young things signaling, cueing and counting their way to financial windfalls is exactly what Williams needs to go out on top.

The screenplay is exactly how the trailer plays it out. They win, they lose. They evade, the get caught. The story is pretty much straight forward, so you have to believe and care in the characters for the movie to work. It's here where we have a hit and miss proposition.

The film hits when it focuses on Spacey and Sturgess. As the mentor and the apprentice, the film is apt at showing a relationship that is built on greed. Add in the mix of Fishburne and there was some real meat on the hook and I was as hungry as John Goodman at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

But the movie suffered whenever the three main characters weren't chewing up the scenery. And where the movie was fun when they were winning, I was bored when they were losing. Director Luketic probably thought he could bridge the gap with the complicated relationship between Ben and Jull, but these two had about as much chemistry as a bowl of Spam and Yogurt.

21 ends up being a borderline recommendation. It wasn't overly good or overly bad. It's like getting two eights to a dealers 7. You just don't know what to do with it.