21[Widescreen Dubbed Subtitle AC3] - DVD

Cast

• Jim Sturgess
• Jim Sturgess - Ben Campbell
• Jim Sturgess - Ben
• Masi Oka
• Helen Carey - Ellen Campbell
• Jeff Dashnaw - Russian Mafioso
• Liza Lapira
• Liza Lapira - Kianna
• Scott Clark Beringer - Big Shot
• Kate Bosworth - Jill Taylor
• Kate Bosworth - Jill
• Alice Lo - Chinese Woman
• Jacob Pitts - Fisher
• Anthony DiMaria - Hard Rock Doorman
• Frankie DeAngelo - Red Rock Host
• Spencer Garrett - Stemple
• Frank Patton - Planet Hollywood Floor Manager
• Donna Lows - Planet Hollywood Dealer
• Butch Williams - Planet Hollywood Dealer
• Jeffrey Ma - Planet Hollywood Dealer Jeff
• Steven Richard Vezina - Red Rock Dealer
• Chaska T. Werner - Red Rock Dealer
• Ernell Manabat - Red Rock Doorman
• Marcus Weiss - Red Rock Valet
• Terasa Livingstone - Russian's Girlfriend
• Colin Angle - Professor Hanes
• Supriya Chakrabarti - Professor
• Bradley Thoennes - Warren
• Sally Livingston - Chemistry Review Girl
• Henry Houh - Chinatown Dealer
• Frank Chen - Shinatown Host
• Ruby Hondros - Wife
• Christian Mello - Drunk Dude
• Greg Seymore - Drunk Dude
• Aaron Yoo - Choi
• Josh Gad - Miles
• Christopher Holley - Philosophical Gambler
• Kyle D. Morris - Red Rock Dealer
• Tom McGowan - Husband
• Celeste Oliva - Airport Screener
• Kieu Chinh - Chinese Woman
• Laurence Fishburne
• Laurence Fishburne - Cole Williams
• Jack Gilpin - Bob Phillips
• Jack McGee - Terry
• Kevin Spacey
• Kevin Spacey - Mickey Rosa
• Kevin Spacey - Micky Rosa
• Sam Golzari - Cam

Crew

• Assistant Sound Editor: Bobby Bowman
• Transportation Captain: Danny Romero
• Storyboard Artist: Marc Vena
• Second Second Assistant Director: Scott Rorie
• Second Assistant Director: John Morse
• Key Costumer: Molly Elizabeth Grundman
• Leadman: Paul Richards
• Best Boy Electric: Carlos Bermudez
• Assistant Location Manager: Mark Fitzgerald
• Transportation Captain: Michael Sean Ryan
• Location Manager: Robin Citrin
• Art Director: Christina Wilson
• Camera Operator: William Shackleton Arnot
• ADR Editor: Jessica Gallavan
• Book Author: Ben Mezrich
• Sound Effects Editor: Wade Wilson
• Screenwriter: Peter Steinfeld
• Costume Designer: Luca Mosca
• Set Designer: Mick Cukurs
• Director: Robert Luketic
• Producer: Dana Brunetti
• Dialogue Editor: Mark Gordon
• ADR Mixer: Howard London
• Dolly Grip: Tony Campenni
• Unit Publicist: Cid Swank
• Stunts: Jason Rodriguez ,Scott Workman
• Foley Artist: Michael Broomberg
• Still Photographer: Peter Iovino
• First Assistant Accountant: Kenneth Gallagher
• Unit Production Manager: Bryan Thomas
• Properties: David Gulick
• Assistant Art Director: Eric Bryant
• Stunts: Richard L. Bucher
• Lighting: Dan Buck
• Music Editor: Carlton Kaller
• Special Effects Coordinator: Matt Kutcher
• Key Costumer: Taryn Walsh
• Visual Effects Supervisor: Gray Marshall
• Production Coordinator: Shari LaFranchi
• Editor: Elliot Graham
• Location Manager: Charles Harrington
• Assistant Director: L. Justin Muller
• Production Designer: Missy Stewart
• Stunts Coordinator: Freddie Hice
• Supervising Sound Editor: Michael Wilhoit
• Script Supervisor: Wilma Garscadden-Gahret
• Foley Artist: Gary A. Hecker
• Negative Cutter: Mo Henry
• Dialogue Editor: Bob Newland
• Executive Producer: Brett Ratner
• Art Director: James F. Truesdale
• Production Assistant: Ramses Del Hierro
• Set Designer: George R. Lee
• Special Effects Technician: Jason Clemence ,Garry Conrad
• Producer's Assistant: Kristen Detwiler
• Dolly Grip: Thomas Doran
• Extra Casting: William F. Dowd
• Production Assistant: Brian Dunn
• Special Effects Technician: Scott Dwyer
• Technical Director: Graham Fyffe
• Production Secretary: Justin George
• Costume/Wardrobe: William B. Hamilton ,Michael D. Hannah
• Assistant Editor: Mark Hartzell
• Production Assistant: Brendan Harvey
• Stunts: Erin Ricotti Hice
• Painter (digital): Rusty Ippolito
• Production Secretary: Spencer Kehe
• Costume/Wardrobe: Parrish Kennington
• Rotoscope Artist: Myung Kim
• Compositor: Myung Kim
• Costume/Wardrobe: Vanessa Knoll
• Production Assistant: Robert Konowalow ,Michael Kowalczyk
• Gaffer: Len Levine
• Department Head Makeup: Tania McCormas
• Art Department Coordinator: Janine Moore
• Technical Advisor: Kyle Morris
• Assistant Production Coordinator: Cory Myler
• Transportation Captain: William H. O'Brien, Jr.
• Production Assistant: Jon Paul Oullette
• Assistant Costumer Designer: Andrew J. Poleszak
• Assistant Production Coordinator: Luke Poling
• Makeup: Susan Romero
• Hair Styles: Cindy Rose
• Dialect Coach: Eda Roth
• Special Effects Coordinator: John Ruggieri
• Dolly Grip: Gary Sauer
• Key Make-up: Patricia Seeney
• Production Supervisor: Sharyn Shimada-Huggins
• Special Effects Technician: Ralph E. III Wilber
• Production Assistant: Katherine Zoller
• Stunts: Mic Rodgers
• Production Sound Mixer: Nelson Stoll
• Casting: Francine Maisler
• Executive Producer: William S. Beasley
• Unit Production Manager: William S. Beasley
• Camera Operator: David E. Diano
• Set Designer: E. David Cosier
• Special Effects Foreman: Brett Barett
• Makeup: Marleen Alter
• Assistant to the Director: Travis Bauer
• Costume/Wardrobe: Laurie Bramhall
• Special Effects Technician: Skip Burrows
• Compositor: John Cairns
• Producer's Assistant: Ian C. Campbell
• Transportation Captain: Robert Carnes
• Department Head Hair: Gloria P. Casny
• Key Hairstylist: Liz Cecchini
• Casting Assistant: Elizabeth Chodar
• DGA Intern: Sonja Christophe
• Key Make-up: Zoe Hay
• Foley Mixer: Brad Brock
• Animation Director: Rob Glazer
• Lead Compositor: Trent Shumway
• Assistant Music Editor: Jason Ruder
• First Assistant Camera: Patrick Quinn
• Graphic Design: Sean Duhame
• Costumes Supervisor: Caroline Errington
• Producer's Assistant: Vanessa Pyne
• First Assistant Camera: Jorge Sanchez
• Dialogue Editor: Laura H. Atkinson
• Assistant Properties: Jennifer Gerbino
• Art Department Coordinator: J.M. Hunter
• Construction Coordinator: Joseph Kearney
• Craft Service/Catering: Tracy R. Spiegel
• First Assistant Accountant: Emily Davis
• Composer (Music Score): David Sardy
• Stunts: J.J. Dashnaw
• Compositor: Nancy Hyland
• Production Accountant: Anne Ford
• Producer: Michael De Luca
• Set Decorator: Tracy A. Doyle
• Screenwriter: Allan Loeb
• Stunts: James M. Halty
• Department Head Hair: Lucia Mace
• Costume/Wardrobe: Johanna Argan
• Production Assistant: Isaac Mejiaa
• Executive Producer: Ryan Kavanaugh
• First Assistant Camera: Eric Swanek ,Erik L. Brown
• Video Assist: Bryce Shields
• Key Grip: Philip M. Sloan
• Boom Operator: Brian Copenhagen
• Foley Editor: Kerry Ann Carmean-Williams
• Craft Service/Catering: Hanna Brothers
• First Assistant Editor: Liza Espinas-Regnier
• Stunts: Billy Lucas
• Storyboard Artist: Mick Reinman
• Second Assistant Camera: Kirk L. Bloom
• Producer: Kevin Spacey
• Producer's Assistant: Hamish Jenkinson
• Sound/Sound Designer: Scott Wolf
• Visual Effects Producer: Ashley Clark
• Lead Compositor: Colin Liggett
• Stunts: Danny Wynands
• Cinematographer: Russell Carpenter
• Set Decorator: Tracey Doyle

21: AMG Review
Nathan Southern , AMG

Some stories lend themselves effortlessly to film, and Ben Mezrich's nonfiction tome Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions marks no exception. Even the headlines engendered by this tale sang a biting, irreverent ode to the wiles of a half-dozen underdog co-eds who managed to beat the evil "system" at its own game through sheer cunning and frightening intelligence. How can one make an unexciting film out of this material? In sum, one cannot; if a "foolproof" film story exists, this is it. It may be the most entertaining blackly comic anti-American fable since the Boyce-Lee account that inspired John Schlesinger's The Falcon and the Snowman. As a result, Robert Luketic's drama 21 (adapted, very loosely, from Mezrich's book) feels eminently thrilling and watchable almost by default. Never once does it fail to hook the audience. And yet, in retrospect, the film clocks in as a missed opportunity on many levels, with more than a handful of aching flaws. Luketic qualifies as a competent journeyman director at best, and he's never even come close to topping the sugar-sweet whimsy of his underrated romantic fable Win a Date With Tad Hamilton! (2004). Here, his ham-fisted approach proves that he's absolutely the wrong person to helm this material (a fact evident as early as the disastrous prologue - a bizarre, post-MTV whirlwind trip up and down the surfaces of CG-drawn gaming tables, where massive CG gaming chips fly across the screen). Luketic skirts through many sequences courtesy of flashy montages, pounding the audience repeatedly with blaring, deafening walls of grunge rock that bear no connection to the events on-screen, and images that do little to communicate anything of significance or even move the narrative forward satisfactorily. Preserving the approach of Mezrich's book, the Allan Loeb-Peter Steinfeld script makes a wise decision by honing in on a single protagonist - Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess as an ideally-cast everyman). Steinfeld and Loeb immediately enable the audience to understand the universally empathetic motivations that would lure this straight-shooter into an 'underground' collegiate gambling ring: with an inability to make his dreams happen by paying for $300,000 in tuition to Harvard Medical School, and a slim chance of landing a 1 in 78 scholarship that will give him a free ride to the said institution, does he have any other option? And could we feel any less than completely in synch with him? As Professor Mickey Rosa, the leader of the said ring, Kevin Spacey achieves something close to perfection; drawing from some of the same cocky and intransigent notes that he sounded in Swimming With Sharks, and yet wrapping them in a veil of sly, unctuous, come-hither temptation, his Mickey is a perfect Mephistopheles figure for these unwitting, impressionable, and deftly-manipulated co-eds. The film scores a bull's-eye in its early passages as it sets up the logic for the events to follow, and Luketic and his production designers make an inspired decision by giving us an ontological environment where clandestine spheres (such as the nocturnal classroom where Professor Rosa "instructs," and a Chinese betting parlor that literally lies underground) seem to exist just beyond the confines of sunlit normalcy. The drama falters, however, once the students hit Vegas; if material such as this sings, we need to feel the lure - the dirty, acid-infused kick - of the gambling, along with Ben and his cohorts. Instead, the first several scenes in Glitter Gulch (in addition to feeling numbingly repetitive) have a limp, half-assed quality that bogs the film and the audience down. Never once do Luketic and his screenwriters pull the audience into the exciting gradual build of Ben & co.'s progressions from aspiring gamblers to instantaneous millionaires. (Most of the time, we aren't even sure how much they've accumulated, and throughout, Luketic skimps on one of the sauciest details - the ensemble's employment of clever disguises to evade pit bosses). The film's second half seriously strains credibility. The surprises will not be disclosed here, but let it be said that Luketic and his screenwriters interpolate several twists and double-crosses that make the film feel like an ersatz, fifth-rate David Mamet thriller. It may have all happened exactly like this, but it rings false and seems to bear little correlation to real life. The film also suffers from a massive tonal problem in its second half. According to the book, these students got away with millions, but that isn't the impression that Luketic gives us at the conclusion. Instead, the director and screenwriter launder the ending by implying that the students (particularly the character of Ben) didn't really end up wrangling all that much from Vegas. We can recognize that implication as false from even the subtitle of Mezrich's book. Luketic is deliberately vague about the conclusion; he even spares us a final title card giving us the satisfactory knowledge of what happened to each character - the saving grace in a movie like this. The false implications of the concluding scenes are a real shame, because they defeat the film's ability to function as a guilty-pleasure thriller where we root for a bunch of underdogs who manage to screw the system from inside out and thwart the doings of the vile pit bosses. (We end up feeling that they haven't gotten away with anything). At least the movie has the casino bouncers right: tonally, much of the tension in the picture originates via the enlistment of Laurence Fishburne, cast as Cole Williams, the head honcho at one of the Vegas casinos. As that character - a great fire-breathing bull of a man who teaches card-counters a lesson by carting each one off to a subterranean warehouse, donning several gem-studded rings on one hand, and then viscerally beating each perpetrator within an inch of permanent brain damage - Fishburne practically commands the production. Much of the first half of the movie does seem to be pointing to a tale in which a bunch of crafty students pull off a big one and in the process, out-manipulate some thoroughgoing bastards who really deserve it. And up until the last 40 minutes, that's more or less what we get - thanks in no small part to the loathsomeness of Fishburne's characterization and Sturgess's everyman affability. But in the end, we're given an unsatisfactorily "moral" conclusion in which we don't even quite know what the moral is (Don't manipulate Vegas casinos??). Moreover, the events of the last few scenes (which seem to negate everything that has preceded them) undercut our sense, throughout the movie, that Ben Campbell has benefited immensely from the casino experience - both fiscally, and psychologically as well, by honing his identity and escaping from his lackluster life for the first time. That sudden contradiction is a difficult pill to swallow after watching the first 2/3 of this movie. In the final analysis, the prospect of watching this tale and remaining genuinely interested in the on-screen events may be an automatic, but this feels like yet another example of Hollywood's ultra-reactionary tendency to shy away from anti-establishment themes at the risk of offending or alienating part of the audience. Didn't they realize that the behavior of Cole Williams is offensive enough to sway just about everyone? ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide