I am doing a case study on the suspense/thriller film 21.The film was directed by Robert Luketic and produced by Columbia Pictures.
The filming of 21 began in March 2007. Principal filming of the Las Vegas scenes took place at the Planet Hollywood Casino and the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas.
The Film was released on the 11th of April 2008 and in its opening weekend; the film grossed $24,105,943 and was ranked first at the box office for 2 weeks. By the end of its theatrical run, the film grossed a total of $157, 802,470 worldwide.
I believe that the target audience intended for this film is mainly males of a young adult age group.
I say this because the film’s focus is on young adults who are extremely clever but still young and immature in the fact that they are taking a big risk with what they are doing.
The fact that the majority of the cast are of this age group means that this story is more likely to relate and be interesting to those of that age. There are also older men in the cast who play the stereotypical gangster character. The whole gangster ‘male power’, guns, money etc I feel is something that this age group will find appealing also.
The way that the few women are portrayed in the plot is very sexualised and something that would appeal to males rather than females.
From looking at the IMBd database, I found that this film had positive views from a large number of people, and was overall rated 6.7 stars out of 10.
Here is an example of one of the positive reviews from the site:
“Winner winner chicken dinner” by Lechuquilla 28 March 2008. 177 of 249 people found this review helpful.
Slick camera work and some good performances rev up the technical quality of this fact-based story about a 21 year old MIT student named Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) who, along with his brainy Ivy League chums, travels to Vegas to win tons of money at the blackjack tables. Their sleazy math professor, Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey), leads the group. Rosa has devised an elaborate and conspiratorial card counting scheme that consists of code words and hand gestures. With all that preparation, the group's scheme does work ... for a while. And in the process, the shy, cautious Ben, who only wants the money for tuition costs, morphs into his alter ego, a person quite unlike his original self.
The film's pace starts off leisurely, then alternates between fast-paced Vegas casino action and periods of downtime wherein Ben and his girlfriend, fellow conspirator Jill (Kate Bosworth), talk shop and take in the high life. The story does have a villain, but it may not be who you think it is.
The script's dialogue is snappy and hip, and contains minimal tech jargon. "Variable change" is one such math term, and it has thematic implications toward the end, as the story twists and turns in ways that may surprise you. And "winner winner, chicken dinner" is the group's lingo for gambling success.
Production design is realistic and lavish; this is a big budget film. Colour cinematography, by DP Russell Carpenter, is polished and slick. There are lots of elaborate camera dissolves and close-ups. The best parts of the film are the close-ups of the characters at the blackjack tables. Film editing coincides with plot pacing, and ranges from slow to super fast. Acting is all-around good. Kevin Spacey gives his usual top notch acting job; Sturgess and Bosworth also give fine performances.
It's not a perfect film. Background music was noisy and rather nondescript for my taste. And I could have wished for more card playing, and less time spent on Ben's college buddies in the first Act; the result is that the film gets off to a slow start. Still, the script is credible, and stays close to its book source "Bringing Down The House" by Ben Mezrich.
Thematically relevant in today's world of greed and materialism, "21" is a terrific film, one that has greater import than other films, because the events in "21" really happened. And the fine performances and polished visuals enhance the overall look and feel, to create a film that is both engaging and entertaining.
As you can see, this is a very honest review with some negatives, but many positives and gives a good review on the film, like many others that I have read. The mass of positive feedback shows that many people believed this to be a good film. This review also explains the suspense/thriller aspects of the film, which is good to be noticed as it is this genre.
New technology such as TV advertising (which was used a lot in the time coming up to the theatrical opening) and the official 21 website: www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/21/ has meant that people can find out about the film much easier than they will have been able to in the past.
The 21 official website as well as other sites such as Wikipedia and IMBd have also been useful for me when finding out information relevant to my case study. These sites will make it easier for those who have not watched the film in its theatrical run to look it up and make a decision on whether or not to purchase or rent the film on DVD.
These are things I have depicted from the two and a half minute opening scene to the film:
‘21’ begins with an incredibly close up shot of two colours – blue and yellow which are separated by a line. These bold primary colours are ones which we associate with excitement and fun as they are very child-like, we picture them with fun childhood times. So we instantly imagine a fun and exciting film.
We then slowly zoom out and spin the camera to see what is a card – the king of clubs. While the camera is zooming out the non-diagetic sound played is very intimidating, and when we see the king, we find him powerful and intimidating; a king is more superior to us.
The ace of clubs then flashes down on top of the king. We are still highly zoomed into the cards and the quickness of the ace landing and the fact that it is on top of the king who we already know is superior, makes the ace seem very powerful – which it is in a game of cards. We also now understand that we are talking about blackjack.
We are then zoomed out to the counters used in casinos to represent money so we understand it is gambling. The camera starts at the bottom of the counter stacks and works its way up using a crane shot. This tower of counters is very powerful it seems and towers above our view, making us feel vulnerable/ intimidated and shows the high status of money in the film.
The camera is flipped over, spun, then travels quickly along a set of cards to keep us focused and create pace, possibly linking how smart and quick minded you have to be to play black jack.
We are then shown other typical casino views such as cards flying out, being dealt. The fact that the cards are not handed out here, the effect of them flying is used, showing the power which these cards can possess in terms of this film, they are seen almost as a magical thing.
We can also hear behind the main voice, the dealer saying ‘winner winner chicken dinner, there it is’. This background noise of a casino helps to tell us where we are and also establishes us with the term used when ‘21’ is dealt, as this is said at the same time as the cards being laid.
There are then more close-up, intimidating views of the cards with small lights shining on them, making them seem huge even though we know that cards are small – this is done to represent their huge status.
The camera spins around the table and then around the counters, spinning like another casino game – roulette which furthers the feeling that we are in a casino. The spinning could also represent that the game is spinning out of control.
We hear the main character who has been talking the whole way through say “first of all, what I was doing wasn’t illegal” – this tells us that he is doing something bad that would probably be frowned upon in society even if it isn’t illegal, and we instantly become weary of him. How close is what he’s doing to being illegal? Or is it actually illegal but he’s twisting his view on the matter?
We then hear that “there were certain people and institutions who frown upon it” and are led to think that if they don’t like it, we aren’t going to like what he is doing. We also at this point see him put on a wig and a moustache in an extreme close up shot, to focus us in on what he is doing - hiding his identity. Why is he hiding himself and who from if he isn’t doing anything illegal? He again emphasises the point by saying “but it’s legal, and not everyone can do it” he is specialised in this area of whatever he is doing. “Just those with gifted minds” he says as he places on a pair of glasses. The line and the glasses together then make us see him as smart and we don’t feel as against him as he has explained further and seems more innocent.
He says “that’s what got me into all this mess” – indicates that something is wrong, danger ahead. He then tells us he was “counting cards”, so we understand that in a way he is cheating the game –which he shouldn’t be doing.
A large amount of gambling money is mentioned and we are shown the chips in towers again in an even more intimidating low angle shot, to show just how much money it is even more clearly – telling us that it is a large amount visually and verbally emphasises the point.
We are then shown some of the signals they use while cheating, starting with a harmless signal – “we need to talk” showing the close up of an eye which seems quite worrying and gives across the effect of being watched.
We then see the most worrying signal, which we can tell through the main character’s body language as he was happily laughing, playing the game, knowing he’s going to win. Then he is really worried, panicked, his smile fades. We see silhouettes of feet walking towards us and understand why they have to leave. Seeing only a silhouette makes these characters very mysterious and dark, they seem deadly as we can tell they are big men, in suits. They are powerful people and hearing their shoes as they walk is very intimidating as it is like the constant ticking of a clock, which gets faster, time is running out, the intensity is heightened when they begin to run.
The suits, big build, and the fact they are going after the card counters suggests that they have a lot of money, probably own the casino and fit the gangster stereotype. Gangs usually have guns, threaten people and hurt them. So we are unsure of the welfare of the card counters.
The rush of the main characters putting the chips into a bag again shows his fear and panic to get away from these people.
The fact this scene was played in slow motion heightens the intensity as we can see every little detail of what is happening clearly and each step of the gangsters is loud and echoes to build up to the pressure that they are getting closer.
No music is used in this opening scene, I feel that this is because the silence and use of other non digetic sounds such as the footsteps make this a much more tense opening.
The narrative structure of the opening scene is a flash-forward into the view of what will be happening later on in the film to give us a hint of what to expect.
As majority of the imagery used in this scene is not real and created by using a computer, the lighting is added in this way too. The lighting is mainly used to reflect of the cards and chips to make them seem, shiny, new, desirable and powerful.
It is not shown in the opening scene, but the film represents women in a quite sexual way, I feel this is to appeal to the male audience, and also this is something that is commonly used in films, it can be quite offensive to females watching the film.
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