21

Remember that pesky catch phrase "Show, don't tell" that your teacher would always write on your papers back in middle school? Well, it seems that none of 21's writing staff ever passed the sixth grade.

21, based on the best-selling book Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich, tells the true story of a group of MIT students who card count their way to blackjack glory in Vegas. 4.0-student Ben Campbell (Across the Universe's Jim Sturgess) has a spot at Harvard Medical School but can only attend if he wins a full-ride scholarship or miraculously makes $300,000 in less than a year. When the admissions board member tells Ben his essay has to "dazzle," Ben realizes he hasn't experienced any real excitement in his life that would make him "jump out of the page." Ta-da! Campbell's unorthodox math professor Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey) recruits Campbell for his underground blackjack team, and soon Campbell knows all the secrets of card-counting and is taking weekend trips to Vegas.

Ben ditches his dorky robot-design friends, becomes infatuated with his teammate Jill (Kate Bosworth) and starts lying to his mother about his whereabouts and the Harvard scholarship. His original motto-"$300,000 and I'm out"-and his poor-boy moral code slowly start to fade, while the glamorous, greedy Vegas lifestyle takes hold of him.

Unbeknownst to the far-too-attractive-to-be-realistic math squad is card-counting watchdog Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne), who eventually catches onto the group's hijinks and intervenes.

The framework for the film-the scholarship essay that has to "dazzle" the Harvard admissions board-is promising but disappears in the overly-extended subplots. 21 is in dire need of a thorough editing job and a greater infusion of morality into its characters. Moments like when Ben and Jill finally get together in a penthouse hotel room overlooking all of Vegas shine through the egregiously over-aware script, but are only impressive because of Vegas' sumptuous visuals, not the filmmakers' originality.

The film had the opportunity for greatness-think Casino meets Garden State-but proves to be as superficial as its setting.