Major Math - Campbell (Sturgess) on a "field trip."

In 21, brilliant MIT student Ben Campell (Jim Sturgess, the McCartney manqué from Julie Taymor's Across the Universe) is easy prey for the crafty machinations of his scheming math professor, Mickey Rosa (Kevin Spacey in a welcome return to his character-actor roots). Working-class Ben wants to attend Harvard Medical School, but lacks the $300,000 to realize his post-graduate aspirations. Rosa, meanwhile, has been stealthily assembling a dream team of MIT whiz kids, teaching them how to count cards at blackjack and flying them off to Vegas for weekend "field trips."

With a little help from friends like the sultry vixen Jill (Kate Bosworth), Rosa coerces Ben into joining his corps of nerdy connivers (Jacob Pitts, Aaron Yoo and Liza Lapira, all terrific). The plan involves a "big player," a "spotter" and the ever-important "hot deck."

If that kind of high-roller gambling lingo sounds as cryptic to you as Egyptian hieroglyphics, don't sweat it. Director Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde, Win a Date With Tad Hamilton) and writers Peter Steinfeld and Alan Loeb work overtime to make all of the film's casino terminology and arcana accessible. (And visual effects supervisor Gray Marshall brings an almost videogame-like immediacy and vibrant, visual clarity to the blackjack scenes which put you in the hot seat right alongside Rosa's wonkish students.) Speaking as someone who doesn't know the difference between Texas Hold 'Em and Baccarat, I was amazed at how easy it was to follow the onscreen gaming. Greed may not be good, but it's certainly fun to watch.

Based on Bringing Down the House, Ben Mezrich's best-selling novel which told the true-life story of MIT students who used their card-counting skills to fleece Vegas casinos back in the '90s, Luketic, Steinfeld and Loeb craft a crackerjack suspense thriller out of material that could have been as dry as dust. Like a good heist flick, the step-by-step, procedural aspects of the planning are even more compelling than the execution itself. And the sly undercurrent of menace skillfully maintained throughout - courtesy of Spacey's deliciously serpentine Rosa and Laurence Fishburne's combustible security consultant - only amps up the drama and tension. Even if there is one cliche (and credibility-defying coincidence) too many in the final reel, this is still an expertly tooled entertainment that's nearly as smart as its brainiac characters.

As trashy, flashy and flagrantly seductive as Sin City itself, 21 is the kind of decadent guilty pleasure that only Hollywood knows how to do right. Luketic has a slick, facile style that's perfectly suited for this type of wish fulfillment-fantasy yarn. Plus, he's got a knack for casting good-looking, clean-scrubbed young actors audiences love rooting for (Reese Witherspoon, Bosworth, Sturgess). While Sturgess might seem too pretty and doe-eyed to be convincing as an MIT math geek, his halting, diffident manner conveys a quasi-humility that nicely deflects his coltish beauty. It's that bashful self-effacement that makes Sturgess an irresistible surrogate here. Girls will think he's pin-up dreamy and guys won't feel unduly threatened because Sturgess makes you believe he doesn't know how cute he really is. That's a win-win situation, and a great recipe for future stardom.

21

*** stars

Opens Friday areawide

Faces of Death

Nanking paints grim portrait of man's inhumanity

By Milan Paurich

Before the Nazi holocaust, Rwanda, Kosovo or Darfur, the Japanese army's wholesale massacre of 200,000 civilians and prisoners of war in Nanking (now Nanjing), China brought a whole new meaning to the term "ethnic cleansing." During the 1937-38 Japanese occupation of the Republic of China's former capital, Nanking became a shell of its former self. Executions and rapes (reportedly more than 20,000) became a part of daily life for the citizens of this formerly sophisticated urban hub.

In Nanking, a remarkably lucid documentary about one of the most terrible secrets of World War II, directors Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman recreate the city's Japanese occupation with compelling, often horrific urgency. Told mostly through letters, journals and diaries of the few Westerners (missionaries, doctors, relief workers, businessmen) who stayed behind to witness firsthand the atrocities and devastation, Nanking paints an indelible portrait of man's inhumanity to man. A few Chinese survivors - now frail and elderly - share still-vivid memories of their collective nightmare.

My only real gripe with Guttentag and Sturman is their decision to have recognizable actors like Woody Harrelson and Mariel Hemingway speak directly into the camera while reading from the archival documents. A more conventional voiceover approach would have been less distracting. (The fact that Harrelson, Hemingway, Jurgen Prochnow, et al, slightly resemble their real-life counterparts might explain the filmmakers' unusual, albeit intrusive methodology.)

A new documentary about Nanking, Iris Chang: The Rape of Nanking, premiered at the recent Berlin Film Festival. Based on the late American author's best-selling book, it's another attempt to open Western eyes to the unspeakable events of 70 years ago. Yet, considering how dramatic the true-life subject matter is, I'm a little shocked that a Chinese equivalent to Steven Spielberg (Chen Kaige or Zhang Yimou perhaps?) hasn't already undertaken a Schindler's List/docudrama-style treatment of the Nanking genocide.

Nanking

*** stars

Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque

At 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 28

and 4:25 p.m. Sunday, March 30