The true-story-based 21 comes off as an extremely interesting, though likely unintended concept: a gangster/crime film for nerds. In structure, it’s basically Little Caesar set in the world of card counting, which in fact isn’t illegal, yet in Vegas is viewed as being just as criminal as bootlegging was during Prohibition. There are a number of moments that exactly fit the mold of the crime genre and some moments that even seem specific to individual films (a short scenario involving new identities feels like a wink at a similar scene in Reservoir Dogs if you’re already thinking about gangster movies). But as interesting as the concept sounds, nerds just aren’t as entertaining as gangsters and blackjack and brains just isn’t as cool on screen as bank robberies and machine guns.

Coinciding with the crime genre structure are the conventions of the geek-gets-popular genre (I guess as social climbing stories, they’re basically the same thing). The story centers on an MIT student (Jim Sturges) who works on robotics in his spare time with his nerdy friends. He’s recruited into a group of mathletes, headed by a behind-the-scenes professor (Kevin Spacey), who spend their weekends in Las Vegas getting filthy rich by counting cards at blackjack tables and playing accordingly. Like Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls or Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar, the popularity and power takes control over the new recruit. But it’s a weird twist, because here the popular kids are actually ubernerds, which is fitting in the world dominated by Bill Gateses and Steve Jobses.

While 21 is interesting for giving a new context for these genres and indirectly exposing parallels between cliques, frats, and gangs, it’s also equally interesting for its plays on the themes of past vs. future and old vs. new. Particularly this is played out in the contrast of setting, as Boston and Vegas are possibly the most different-looking, different-functioning cities in America. We’ve all seen establishing montages of both locations a million times, so much that we’re really, really tired of them, yet this movie manages to find new life in them by pitting them against each other. There are other uses of the old vs. new theme, too, including a casino loss-prevention consultant (Laurence Fishburne) dealing with the issue of his job becoming obsolete in an era dominated by face-recognition software. It’s the best address of change in Vegas since the Oceans Eleven movies started coming out.

Overall, though, as interesting as the themes and motifs are in the film, the story is ultimately a bore. Part of the problem is the conventional familiarity, which must be an awful over-simplification of the true story (21 is adapted from Ben Mezrich’s non-fiction book Bringing Down the House), and a bigger part of the problem is the constant lifelessness of Kate Bosworth and Kevin Spacey, who have to be just literally sucking the life out of each other now in their third film together. Together they make Sturges, who was one of the few good things about Across the Universe, seem even more talented than he is, though at the same time they also occasionally kind of drag him down with them.

21 is the kind of movie that can be appreciated for the things it gets right yet then (and therefore) can be so much more disappointing for the things it lets lag. The movie would have been a more balanced and decent (as in so-so, but not bad or disappointing) effort if it were like director Robert Luketic’s other fluffier works (Win a Date With Tad Hamilton; Legally Blonde), which are more enjoyable because they don’t try too hard and function fine as passive entertainments. With 21, a movie that could have been so much more, Luketic is as out of his element as those MIT students are out of theirs.

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