Cynical Cinema

There was a made-for-TV movie about the MIT students that took Vegas for millions of dollars at the blackjack tables a few years ago.  Try as I might, I can’t seem to find it now.  I believe it was Canadian.  It was being shown on the movie network this year, and it was pretty good.  It dealt with the same true story as 21, based on the book “Bringing Down the House”.  In fact, it was virtually the same movie as 21.  The only difference between the two movies is that 21 has better production values and a more well-known cast.  Kevin Spacey stars as the teacher at MIT who recruits a bunch of math geniuses to form a team that is ready to take Las Vegas for millions at the blackjack tables.

That team consists of Jim Sturgess, the smartest-of-the-smart, who is the last member recruited for the team.  Also Kate Bosworth, the hottest-girl-on-campus, and also Liza Lapira, Jacob Pitts and Aaron Yoo.  While the story deals with such themes as gambling addiction, the corruptive influence of Las Vegas, the ego clashes between team members, the modernization of Vegas and the shunting aside of the old guard, the questionable relationship between a teacher and his students, and of course the concept of “who your true friends are”.  But it deals with each of these themes so superficially that you already know how every moment of this movie will play out.

Every character is so obvious that it becomes clear within their first two minutes of screen time exactly how they will turn out.  The story arc of Jim Sturgess as Ben, the smartest kid on the team, is the only one that really gets fleshed out in the movie, but every moment of it is totally conventional film.  He joins the team to make money so he can go to Harvard med school.  (Although why someone with this kind of math genius would want to become a doctor is never explained.  It’s like they just figure “doctor” is the smartest thing someone can be.)  He gets sucked in by the allure of Vegas and money, and leaves his true friends behind!  And eventually gets out of control and his world comes crashing down…and so on and so forth.  I think we’ve all seen this a thousand times before.

The only character with some mystery is that of Kate Bosworth, who is either a femme fatale, luring Ben into this world of fast money and fast women, or she’s an innocent ingenue who also becomes corrupted by the influence of Vegas, OR she’s the only character who maintains her moral centre throughout the film.  Even after the movie ended, I was still not sure which one of these characters she really was.  But in the end, that wasn’t because the film makers wanted to give her that sense of mystery, but rather it’s because her character is so badly written that she actually is all of these contradictory things.  Bosworth is OK as an actress, but she isn’t quite comfortable in a role where no one (including Bosworth) really knows where her character is going in the movie.

21 is slick, polished and totally surface-deep.  Even the really interesting characters (like Laurence Fishburne as a casino security pro) get slicked-over, caricature treatment.  Which means that as far as brainless entertainment goes, 21 is pretty good.  It’s so smooth and polished that it gleams.  And many people who want to just sit back and enjoy a movie without thinking at all will enjoy that.  The problem I have with it is that this is a movie about the smartest math geniuses in the world, and an incredibly complex card-counting scheme, and yet the movie never makes an attempt to itself be smart.

Across the Universe thinks it is very smart. And in some ways, it is. But in watching it, I was constantly aware of the smug sense of self-satisfaction the people involved obviously felt. The concept of the film is that it is a story that is told through Beatles’ songs. That’s about it. So what it ends up becoming is a loose and poorly connected collection of related stories, barely adequate acting, and some heavy-handed symbolism and satire. (Example: There is a sign painted on a wall in New York that says Cafe Huh? Get it? Example 2: They sing “Revolution”, and as they talk about pictures of Chairman Mao, lo and behold, there’s one on the wall. The rooftop concert. Remember when the Beatles did a…never mind.) The characters all have very convenient names for a movie with Beatles songs as its only means of conveying plot. There is a Lucy, a Jude, and Maxwell, Sadie, Prudence and Jojo. Jojo is convenient for the song Come Together, Lucy appears in a sky with diamonds, and Jude…well, obviously. For some reason, Maxwell never goes on a silver-hammer-aided rampage, and that disappointed me a little. I mean, he WAS sent to Vietnam.

In the end, Across the Universe ends up being nothing more than a series of music videos set to Beatles songs, with the occasional staggeringly cheesy my-first-video-editor-kit special effects. And yet, somehow, against all odds, it works. It should not work. I should not enjoy this movie. In fact, I kept kicking myself, over and over, every time I realized I was having a good time watching. Which, at the end of the two-hours-plus run time, left my non-kicking leg extremely bruised. I can’t explain it. I really don’t understand why it was good. It just was. Bono shows up as a guy in a cowboy hat and a handlebar mustache to lead a rousing rendition of I Am The Walrus. Eddie Izzard, as Mr. Kite, appears in a cartoon music video that looks as though it was shot by the Monty Python animation department. And Salma Hayek shows up in a nurse uniform to do backing vocals on Happiness is a Warm Gun.

In the end, the movie’s main failing is that it is WAY too long. This would have been a terrifically entertaining one-hour movie, but at more than two hours, it requires a commitment. Also, the best covers of the Beatles songs come near the beginning - a fantastic version of I Wanna Hold Your Hand, sung by a lovesick lesbian teenager, and a heartbreaking version of Let It Be set during a riot in Detroit. Also great is the take on Revolution. The only moment in the movie where you feel and see the song the way the Beatles intended. Song to skip: I Want You/She’s So Heavy. This is painful in that same heavy-handed sort of way. It’s a draft board, see, and Uncle Sam is singing I Want You…to join the army…and then the soldiers are singing She’s So Heavy while carrying…the Statue of Liberty. You want to scream at the television. Come ON! There are many other songs worth skipping as well. And the dialogue is dreadful. The guy at the unemployment line in England says “I was going to retire when I’m 64.” Get it? Or the explanation for the presence of Prudence in the apartment: “She came in through the bathroom window”. We GET IT. Now STOP.

I know, it seems like I’m ragging on this movie, and, in point of fact, I am. Nothing about it adds up. It should really be awful, and it IS awful. But somehow, it came together enough to entertain me reasonably for at least an hour. Get it? Came together? Whooo, I could have written this film. I don’t know how I could have written a more ambiguous review, but there it is. This movie is terrible. And you might just enjoy it.