Sioux City Journal

The deck is stacked in '21'

By Bruce R. Miller Journal staff writer | Posted: Sunday, July 27, 2008

There's a new bunch of kids in town.

Beverly Hills, that is. This fall, "90210," an update of the popular television series, hits The CW. While Shannen Doherty, Jennie Garth and Tori Spelling are returning, none of the guys are.

Instead, kids with new issues will fill the halls of West Beverly High.

Meanwhile, if you're still smitten with Brenda and Brandon, Dylan and Donna, you can watch the fifth season on DVD. It's out Tuesday, along with several other TV collections and a special 25th anniversary edition of "WarGames."

Still not intrigued? Try "The Hills," season three. The faux reality series lets you see just how bland it is in the 90210 zip code.

Also: '21'

You could watch "21" three or four times and still not learn how to count cards, which could be disappointing to everyone hoping to rake in a fortune.

Drawing on a real-life venture, director Robert Luketic shows what happens when five students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology follow a professor's lead and decide to make a fortune in Las Vegas. The professor (played by Kevin Spacey) has a simple system of signals designed to show his team where to clean up. When they're at a hot table, they know when to hold 'em. The system works - as long as casino security doesn't catch on But a new identification system is about to be put in play and the counters are just weeks ahead of being caught.

A newcomer (played by Jim Sturgess) serves as the audience's tour guide and he's intriguing - for someone who never loses his poker face. He's a cool customer who just wants to earn enough to fund medical school at Harvard.

Naturally, he's corrupted by the system. He actually thinks his cute partner (Kate Bosworth) is interested in him; despite the need, he still has a taste for greed. In Vegas, he wears designer duds and sucks down expensive drinks. At MIT, he rides a bike and plays the poor college student.

Clearly, the deck is stacked against him and his friends. If the gamble worked, the film wouldn't have any great lessons to teach.

So, the oh-so-smart kid does some really stupid things. Instead of depositing his winnings in a bank (or leaving them at his mother's house) he stashes them in his room's ceiling tiles. Instead of using his brain, he follows his heart. Worst of all, he doesn't call his professor's bluff. When Spacey tries to pull a fast one, the kid doesn't make his own threat, he folds. That sets up a second scam and a resolution that's about as obvious as the chips on the blackjack table.

Luketic deals in a cameo by Laurence Fishburne and it's merely to give "21" the heft of something like "Casino." Fishburne is a security goon who openly roughs up those who make too much money. He has his eye on Sturgess and he's not going to blink.

While Luketic does a good job making Vegas look sexy, he doesn't quite get his geography right. At one point he has the gang staying at the Hard Rock Hotel. Yet their window looks out onto hotels on the Strip. If you've been to Vegas, you know that's not true. Then, too, he uses the Planet Hollywood hotel as the base for a lot of action but it wasn't a player when the real story took place.

Considering "The Real World" and "Las Vegas" have made the city as familiar as an all-you-can-eat buffet, he shouldn't have shuffled the truth.

Settling for a safe bet, Luketic risks nothing. Even Spacey looks about as thrilled as a cashier exchanging a bucket of coins for a cool fifty. "21" may make cents, but it doesn't make sense.

Also this week:
TV: "Centennial," the complete series; "Girlfriends," season four; "Law and Order SVU," season seven; "Phineas and Ferb"; "Stargate: Continuum"; "Freakazoid," season one; "Tiny Toon Adventures," season one; "The Wiggles"; "Witchblade," complete series; "Wizards of Waverly Place"
Film: "The Band's Visit"; "Dark City"; "Doomsday"; "Inglorious Bastards"; "Never Back Down"; "Surfwise"