21 (DVD)

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As predictable and routine as the plot can be, it's Sturgess and a young cast full of interesting people (including Aaron Yoo, Liza Lapira, and Jacob Pitts) that hold our attention. Without these young actors, and without the ever-edgy Spacey, "21" would be just another yawner about gambling. It's the talent that makes us care, and the characters that save an otherwise lackluster script from real mediocrity. There's nothing else noteworthy about this film by Luketic ("Legally Blonde," "Monster-in-Law"). The cinematography is nothing special, the shots are pretty basic, and the screenplay, as I said, offers no delights or surprises. Yet, it's entertaining, and as I said, the cast is largely responsible for that. If you do the math, mentally removing Sturgess from the cast takes away a disproportionate amount of interest. We care as much about this nice guy and the mess he's gotten himself into as we do that quintessential nice guy, Tobey Maguire. Sturgess has the same charismatic combination of self-effacing shyness and down-to-earth honesty that makes him as suitable an Everyman as Maguire. But he has more range than Maguire, which you can see if you isolate him in scenes where he's playing opposite different people. When he's nerding it up with friends, giving in to his feelings with Jill, playing at the tables, jousting with his professor, or hanging tough in the face of house thugs, Sturgess gives us a different dimension of his character every time, with all the facial expressions to support that. He's the biggest bright spot in an otherwise uninspired film.

Video:
"21" is mastered in High Definition and looks very good on this standard definition DVD, which only goes to show that any film is only as good (or bad) as the source materials. Presented in 2.40:1 aspect ratio, "21" has rich-looking colors and decent edge delineation for a DVD. Nice picture.

Audio:
The audio is a Dolby Digital 5.1 in English, French, or Spanish, with subtitles in those same languages and closed captioning in English. The sound is nicely balanced, with high notes and low detectable, and a generous spread across the front speakers. Tonally, there's a nice rich timbre to the voices, with very little in the way of hiss or other distortion.

Extras:
Digital copy fans will be excited that there's a downloadable copy of the film included.

I've never been a fan of commentaries which find the director joined by one or more producers, so I didn't enjoy this one, which features Luketic and producers Dana Brunetti and Michael De Luca. I just don't care enough about their mindset, which is how things come together: when the project began, when each person got involved, which actor they brought onboard first, etc.--you know, the logistics of filmmaking, rather than the art of it, or the anecdotes that reveal screen personalities. But as commentaries of this type go, it's solid in terms of the information it provides. There are also three featurettes, one that's barely over 20 minutes and two that are around 7-10 minutes. The longer making-of extra is "Basic Strategy," which takes you behind the scenes in Boston and Las Vegas to see them filming. A roughly seven-minute feature spotlights production design, while an only slightly longer one shows members of the cast as they try to give viewers a primer on the rules and strategies of Blackjack. But you won't learn enough to break the bank, the next time you board a riverboat casino.

Bottom Line:
"21" is a pretty routine caper film that feels more contrived than the real-life story it apes. But Jim Sturgess elevates the material, and the boy-genius angle makes it entertaining, despite the flaws.