'21' (PG-13)(out of four)

You'll get bitten by the gambling bug after seeing "21." And if you're like me and have already been seduced by slots or card games, "21" will make you want to hop, skip, fly, jump or do whatever it takes to get to Las Vegas.

The stars of the film are Kevin Spacey as a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who had his own knack for card counting until he was forever forbidden from Vegas tables. Now he has some young mathematical protégés who are willing to take up the charge.

He calls them "The Team" and they are out to bilk Sin City for millions. The movie is based on a real-life gang of math geniuses who were tutored by the professor and who became notorious after Professor Micky discovers a stand-out. In real life, his name is Jeff Ma. In the movie he's Ben Campbell, a nice guy who visits his widowed mom when not attending whiz kid college classes to get him into Harvard Medical School. Over soup one day she offers him $68,000 to get into Harvard, but he won't accept it. Why not? Because Campbell (played by Jim "Across the Universe" Sturgess) has a secret bankroll tucked away beneath the ceiling tiles in his dorm room. On weekends, he's joined the underground "team" that's been given a very special assignment by Professor Micky (Spacey).

But for Micky it's not all fun, money and cocktails; this is big business. He has a rule for the team. They are not to think of themselves as gamblers, but as card counters.

Well, you can imagine after Ben gets pumped up from one too many great nights at the tables, he starts to play loose with the winnings. The movie turns into a melodrama about the ups and downs of the working-class kid from Boston who gets in with the wrong crowd, and then bad things happen to him. Yet there's so much more to look at in this film, the one weak link hardly matters.

Director Robert Luketic keeps the action going by making Las Vegas a co-star in the film, and inserting some nice effects including giant flash cards, flying poker chips, fast cuts and lots of aerials of the Vegas strip.

Plus Luketic was able to get his crews inside some hip, fun and sexy casinos such as the new Planet Hollywood, the Hard Rock and the Red Rock Resort for his shoot, putting moviegoers inside the action.

To make it authentic, two weeks prior to filming along the Vegas strip, the actors who play the M.I.T. team of card counters spent time with veteran card consultants to learn how to play the game.

He's also assembled a great cast. In addition to his main stars, Laurence Fishburne gets nasty as a bulky Vegas security expert being pushed out of the business by technology. And Kate Bosworth is an able co-star as a fellow card counter and Ben's love interest.

"21" may not have the slickness of the "Oceans" series of Vegas films, but it can rightly join the rat pack along side many must-see gambling flicks.