Hit me.

A review of 21.

Like so many a hand in Vegas, 21 felt like a missed opportunity. Given its premise – MIT students work together in an elaborate card-counting scheme to best the blackjack tables in Vegas and reap oodles of cash – it had the potential to be a fantastically entertaining movie. Unfortunately, to my mind, it only partly delivered.

Directed by Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde, Monster-in-Law) from a script adapted by Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb (from the book Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich, which I have not yet had the pleasure of reading but now plan to), 21 tells the story of Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess), the quintessential good kid. Ben is an MIT senior and possessor of a shiny new acceptance letter to Harvard Medical School. What Ben doesn't possess, however, is the 300 K he'll need to pay for Harvard Med (but really, who does?). Enter Professor Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey) and his coven of "extra credit" (literally) self-styled mathletes, who entangle Ben in their high-risk card-counting scheme by baiting him with the object of his crush, Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth), at the expense of his relationship with his best friends, his heretofore impeccable school record and his integrity. Will Ben get the girl? Will Ben keep all his teeth? Will Ben fashion a plausible explanation for why he lacks any trace of a Boston accent despite being a native Bostonian? (As Jim Sturgess is a native Brit, perhaps the filmmakers figured they should just stick with a plain old "American" accent.)

It is precisely this – Ben's personal journey – that is most problematic to me in 21. At the outset of the movie, the script makes a point of showing us just how good a kid Ben is – a good guy to his friends, a good son to his mother, even celebrating his 21^st birthday with his buddies at the restaurant where she waits tables, and a good student – beyond the aforementioned Harvard Med acceptance, he also dazzles in his classes at MIT, which is how he attracts the attention of the Luciferous (no, not a word, but it should be one that exists specifically to describe 95% of the characters Kevin Spacey plays) Professor Rosa. In keeping with his virtuous character, Ben declines the offer to join the card-counting "team" not once, but twice, the second time saying no to Jill herself, who has turned up to erode his resolve while he's on the job at J. Press (a clothing store) (where, in yet another example if his high "good guy" quotient, he's recently been promoted to assistant manager). But then in a reversal the audience is permitted no part of experiencing, Ben shows up to team practice, making his entrance by showing off his innate card-counting prowess. It was incredibly dissatisfying to see nothing of what, given the set-up, should have been quite a moral struggle for Ben. And I was left asking myself why? Why the turn? Was it strictly because of his crush on Jill? Was he that tempted by the money? I needed to see more of the justification, especially given his anti-good guy behavior later.

In addition to the deficiencies in Ben's arc, the supporting characters were unevenly drawn. Ben's buddies, Miles (Josh Gad) and Cam (Sam Golzari), were terrific – funny, smart, spirited performances and excellent mirrors for Ben's turn to the dark side. But Ben's new companions on the card-counting team were simply types. We never got to know them, nor understand why they were on the team and why they wanted to be there. The kids never seemed to have enough fun to sell me on the greed, glitz and glamour justification. So why were they working so hard to bring Ben into the mix? And I never understood what was so special about Jill that she seemed to pull an Eve on Ben. The story revealed little about her character and Kate Bosworth's performance was, well, fine, but not compelling. And not to harp on hairstyles of actresses named Kate (see Snow Angels review), but honestly, I was distracted by how well-coiffed she was in each and every scene, and how exactly even her bangs and hair were cut, as though she had them trimmed every other day (which she probably did, on the set, but no college kid, especially one at a school in Boston in the middle of winter when hats go on heads fair often, is going to bother spending the time and money on). Kevin Spacey gave a fine performance of a one-dimensional character he's played several times before, as did Laurence Fishburne.

While the lack of definitive motivation for Ben's biggest decision prevents 21 from being a great movie, there was still plenty to enjoy. You'll probably see the "twist" coming from a mile away, but that still doesn't mean it's not fun to watch it play out. And I may be biased because I love the city, but I think Boston makes for a great setting, and sometimes a character, for many a film (see, e.g., The Departed, Gone Baby Gone, Good Will Hunting to name a few) and it only enhances 21. The contrast between wintry, conservative Boston and colorful, unrestrained Vegas is well-portrayed. I wouldn't necessarily recommend that you double-down and pony up the bucks to see this movie in a reserved-seating Arclight-esque theater, but it's certainly worth spending the nickels you would have otherwise entertained yourself with at the slots to see it on the big screen at a regular theater.

Dodge Ball.

A review of Leatherheads.

Leatherheads is a pretty fun movie. Or, one could also say that it's a pretty, fun movie. It's beautifully shot and visually stunning, the costumes and hairstyles in particular standing out in a good way. And the scenes that consist primarily of witty, rapid-fire barb-trading are amusing and zing in all the right places. Unfortunately, these scenes cannot hold the movie together and "pretty good" makes for a decent, but not great, movie-going experience.

Directed by George Clooney and written by Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly, Leatherheads' story revolves around the efforts of Clooney's Jimmy 'Dodge' Connelly to reignite interest in professional football in the 1920s and thereby preserve the existence of his team, the Duluth Bulldogs, and his job as the world's oldest running back. Dodge sees his solution in the person of star Princeton running back and war hero Carter Rutherford (The Office's John Krasinski), whose play has been attracting crowds of upwards of forty thousand fans. Dodge succeeds in getting Carter and his sleazy agent/manager, CC Frazier (Jonathan Pryce) to sign up to play with the Bulldogs. Enter Lexie Littleton (Renée Zellweger), the Chicago Tribune's crack reporter assigned to "cook Rutherford's goose" and reveal the truth about his heroism or lack thereof while serving as a soldier in the Great War. A love triangle develops (or rather, attempts to develop) (because really, does anyone ever doubt that George Clooney will get the girl? Or is here where I need to provide the disclaimer that I find Clooney disarmingly charismatic and irresistibly attractive?) (seriously, who could deny him when he cocks his head just so and makes those puppy dog eyes?) and hijinks ensue.

But even the entertainment value of the hijinks could not obscure the underdevelopment that plagues Leatherheads. It did not feel like a fully realized tale, but rather, felt like two different pictures. There was the movie about the evolving gentrification of professional football with the introduction of rules and the removal of the whimsy and trickery that seemed to give the game its appeal. Then there was the stylized romance between Dodge and Lexie, slapstick at its best. Back and forth it went, like the tossing of a football, zigging when it should have zagged, never settling upon a true rhythm and never fully integrating the two stories. The stakes never seemed high enough because the tone of the film reassured us that neither Dodge nor Lexie nor Carter would truly lose it all. Thus, the diversion needed to come in the route to the conclusion, one that never veered from the standard playbook. Clooney should've taken a page from his character and introduced a few trick plays rather than sticking to the tried-and-true buttonhooks and standard Statue of Liberty formations.

Within those limitations, however, the performances by the main players are strong. Clooney's Dodge charms his way through every scene and his comic timing is impeccable. You can almost see how much fun he and Zellweger are having amidst their onscreen volleys. And Zellweger handled the comedy and stylized scenes deftly, although at times Lexie's utter lack of flappability (rather ironic for a flapper) took me out of the periodness of the piece. Krasinski's Carter was equally well-played, and he convincingly oscillated from likeable to unlikeable, opportunistically switching allegiances and historic truths as the situation required. And Jonathan Pryce's CC was delightfully dastardly. A great number of the supporting characters were insufficiently defined and therefore not as memorable, a flaw in the film and a shame as it wasted some very talented character actors. One notable exception was Peter Gerety's (of HBO's The Wire) role as Commissioner Pete Harkin, a highly amusing ball buster (pun intended).

The conclusion of Leatherheads will surprise no one. But watch through the end credits anyway, and you won't be disappointed. They take you through an array of amusing photos which reveal the fate of the characters. Like the players in Leatherheads, you won't be any worse for the wear for having seen it, but you probably won't be much better off, either. So I'd consider it a solid DVD rental. I'd only give it matinee-price potential if a) you're really desperate to see something in the theater and truly nothing else appeals; b) you have a fine appreciation for the art of costume design and/or hairstyling and/or cinematography; c) you like your Clooney larger than life; or d) none of the above, but you're open to a little fun. Hey, pretty fun is better than no fun.

Annie Get Your Gun

Snow Angels ("SA"), a drama adapted for the screen and directed by David Gordon Green (an indie director known in indie circles for such indie fare as All the Real Girls and Undertow), is like the annoying-if-well-intentioned friendless kid in class. You want to be kind to him, but he just so completely lacks self-awareness and is so self-indulgent, that the best thing you can probably do is follow the old adage, "if you don't have anything nice to say…" Not that I can't find nice things to say about SA – we'll get to that in a bit – it's just that there are a lot of other things to say about this flawed film.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should reveal that I am not familiar with the source material – a novel by Stewart O'Nan – so I cannot comment upon how faithfully the screen version hews to the original. SA presents the story of the interconnected lives of various residents of a small Canadian town. Arthur (Michael Angarano), a sweet high school band geek, finds hope amidst his parents' break-up in a relationship with new-girl-in-school Lila (Olivia Thirlby, who looks so cold during some of her scenes that I just wanted to make her some hot chocolate). Arthur's former babysitter, Annie (Kate Beckinsale), is trying to survive single motherhood following her separation from unstable, recently born-again religious fanatic Glenn (Sam Rockwell). And Annie's co-worker, Barb (Amy Sedaris), learns to transcend her anger to help her friend when own marriage to philandering Nate (Nicky Katt) turns rocky, due in no small part to Annie.

The film begins with a marching band rehearsal (featuring a cartoonish band leader) interrupted by the jarring echo of two gunshots. We are then immediately transported to "Weeks Earlier" as the film proceeds to fill in the story. Maintaining dramatic tension while using this type of flashback device is a challenging endeavor, and it's the rare movie that pulls it off successfully – Michael Clayton is the exception, not the rule. Suffice it to say that SA is no Michael Clayton. From the moment we were introduced to Sam Rockwell's over-the-top and uncontained Glenn, I had a very clear sense of how this all was going to play out, and it wasn't pretty. In fact, when the movie finally caught up with itself, I felt only relief at the sounding of the two gunshots, rather than any sense of sadness for the fate that befell their victims.

Along the same lines, I had a hard time caring about most of the characters, as there wasn't a whole lot to like or sympathize with. Five minutes after the film concluded, I couldn't remember Kate Beckinsale's character's name (Annie), which is either a sign that she wasn't much worth remembering or that I was dropped a few too many times on my head as a youngster. While the latter may be true, I'm fairly certain the former is accurate. Quite simply, I never bought Kate Beckinsale as her character – a small town waitress with no prospects beyond the hamster wheel of a life she found herself in. Beckinsale never fit in with the rest of the cast – she was too pretty, too polished and frankly, her perfect highlights were distracting. I found myself thinking on more than one occasion: a) I wonder how her character could afford such a fantastic color job; and b) who on earth could be so skilled at highlighting hair in this small town when everyone else was clearly coif-challenged (see, e.g., Amy Sedaris' Barb).

More than that, Annie just wasn't a very nice person. She lied, cheated with her friend's husband and flirted with Arthur, her former babysitting charge, just to feel better about herself with no care to how much of a tease she was to him. And she was a selfish mother, yelling impatiently at four-year-old daughter Tara at the slightest provocation. It didn't help matters that the little girl who played Tara was simply dreadful. This is not intended to be cruel, as children of that age don't really act, but rather are coached more than anything, and the little girl who played Tara (name intentionally omitted) was not well guided. There was nothing genuine about her scenes with either her mother or father and therefore it was even more difficult to care when climactic Tara-in-peril events unfolded.

Happily, there was one storyline that was perfectly lovely to watch unfold, that of the sweet romance between Arthur and Lila. Michael Angarano and Olivia Thirlby gave understated performances with layers and depth. Thirlby in particular, most recently seen as best friend Leah in Juno is a delight to watch on the screen, and I hope to see her in even more central roles in future films. Sedaris and Katt gave admirable performances despite being saddled with rather dreary characters. Beckinsale could take a page from Sedaris' lack of vanity in portraying her character – she disappeared into Barb.

SA concludes with the same static shots of the every day life in the town that flashed by at the top of the film, as if to indicate that despite the tragic events of the past 106 minutes, nothing changes, life goes on. And the final shot of the film, which I can only assume was meant to convey the same sentiment, was so abrupt as to feel silly. Thus, I cannot even recommend SA for a DVD rental. Maybe if you're on an international flight and your other choices are Lindsay Lohan's I Know Who Killed Me and Paris Hilton's The Hottie and The Nottie, then I'd say give it a go. It's not a terrible film, it's just not terribly good.

A Sure Thing. Sort Of.

I was going to start off this first review by promising that I would never stoop to punning. You know, that I wouldn't write reviews featuring those clever attempts at plays on words that make you groan nine times out of ten, but that every so often have you nodding at your computer screen (or magazine, newspaper or parchment scroll) in amusement and admiration. But anyone who knows me for more than five minutes knows that however well-intentioned that sentiment might be, I would never quite be able to fulfill it. Much like the premise and promise of the subject of this review, Definitely, Maybe…

Definitely, Maybe ("DM") is a decent romantic comedy that delivers no more and no less than what one expects from the kind of chick flick that you're signing up to go see based upon the preview. Though DM tries valiantly to rise above the predictability of its genre with some nice, original brushstrokes, it ultimately does not, making it the kind of movie one might describe when asked "how was it?" as "good" with a little pitch to one's voice because, while there's nothing bad about it, there's nothing all that memorable about it. It's the kind of movie that you enjoy while you're watching it, assuming the rom-com genre is your cup of tea, and then you move on with the rest of your life.

That being said, there's plenty to like about DM. Ryan Reynolds is utterly charming as Will Hayes, a soon-to-be-divorced dad to Abigail Breslin's Maya. Reynolds has a self-deprecating ease about him that tempers the earnestness of Will (a good thing, because something needs to), and he cements his leading-man status with this performance. A clever set-up at Maya's school (that I would describe but is really far funnier to experience unspoiled) instigates an interrogation by Maya, and Will agrees to make like Bob Saget and recount the story of "How I Met Your Mother."

Thus we are sucked into the story of Will and His Three Serious Girlfriends, because everything always works better in threes, and we see Will meet girl, Will try to marry girl and Will lose girl several times. Elizabeth Banks, Isla Fisher and Rachel Weisz are each lovely and amusing in their own way and Breslin's Maya is cute without being cloying. Writer/director Adam Brooks' (writer of such similar fare as Bridget Jones, The Edge of Reason, Wimbledon and Practical Magic) choice to make Will an idealistic Clinton campaigner, paralleling Will's triumphs and setbacks with Clinton's, enlivens the story and distinguishes it. And Kevin Kline is a riot as dirty old man Hampton Roth, once you get past the shock of just how old he looks. Such flavor nicely tempers the fairly predictable plot that plods a bit at times and culminates in the conclusion you've been anticipating.

All in all, DM is worth the price of (matinee) admission. So if a chick flick that'll definitely make you smile and maybe choke up a bit sounds appealing, then spending an afternoon with DM is just what the reviewer ordered.