MIT card-counters hit Vegas in "21"

Robert Luketic's card-counting Vegas caper "21" is filled with wicked grins; in fact, entire scenes seem to take place with little happening but people smiling at each other in that naughty, we're-all-in-this-together way conspirators do when they're up to something not entirely nice.

The movie is based, rather loosely, on Ben Mezrich's nonfiction book "Bringing Down the House," about a team of MIT students who turned blackjack into a science, finding a way to beat casinos at their own game. And it's enjoyable enough, though some of those wicked grins grow hollow after a while.

Kevin Spacey, in particular, cruises through the movie as if he's already given his real performance somewhere else and is reprising it under mild duress. There's a fine line between a character who's bored with what he's doing and an actor who isn't challenged by his role, and it's hard to tell here exactly which side of the line Spacey's performance falls on. As Mickey Rosa, the MIT teacher who's the ringleader of the student team (they meet in secret, like a geeky Fight Club), Spacey rattles off his lines in a theatrical yet vaguely disinterested way, exuding oily, deadpan confidence. He's playing the kind of teacher who's always performing, and Spacey's take on the role fits — except that we've seen him give this exact performance a few too many times before.

Meanwhile, Laurence Fishburne doesn't have enough to do as a casino enforcer. He gives his all to lines like, "I will break your cheek with a small hammer, and then I will kill you" (an impressive threat; this is a guy who really thinks about how to scare people) and then vanishes for lengthy periods.

The MIT team is lively, though a few of the characters are underwritten (particularly the kid played by Aaron Woo of "Disturbia," a young actor with enough charisma and comic timing to easily carry his own movie). Jim Sturgess ("Across the Universe") is boyishly charming, like the young John Cusack, as the main character, a smart student trying to make enough money to pay for Harvard Medical School. Reluctantly drawn into the card-counting circle, he gets seduced by the lifestyle, leaving behind his old friends and lying to his old-school Boston mom, who still believes that "hahd work pays off." But if he's so smart, why does he stash all his winnings behind a ceiling tile in his dorm room? Hasn't he ever seen any movies?

Luketic, best known for "Legally Blonde," gives it all an agreeable bounce, even as we see all too clearly exactly where it's going. (I don't mean that literally; this film often seems to be taking place during an MIT light-bulb shortage, with numerous absurdly dark scenes.) "21" doesn't quite hit the jackpot, but with popcorn it should satisfy.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com