Read More @HJ Reviews: "Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner?" Matt Hill What Do You Need? Jacob Sahms Previews: Trailer, Photos, Overview David Bruce, Webmaster Ah, Moral Dilemmas Jacob Sahms

At the beginning of the movie 21, we find M.I.T student Ben Campell (Jim Sturgess) sitting in the office of a Harvard professor as he presents his case for receiving a full scholarship to Harvard Med. He has good grades, good scores, and good resume. As he tells the professor, he really needs it. But as the professor tells him, "It's a free ride, and free rides don't come easy."

With his entire future resting on his ability or inability to pay for medical school, Ben returns to his last semester at M.I.T. with the knowledge that he must either figure out a way to get the money for med school himself or make himself stand out enough to get the scholarship. As chance would have it, he is recruited by a group of students who spend their weekends in Vegas counting cards and winning thousands. At first, he tells them he's not interested in joining. All his life, he's earned everything he has by honest work, and somehow counting cards just doesn't seem right. But with the problem of financing his upcoming schooling looming closer and closer, he finally gives in. And before he knows it, he's living the Vegas life.

After Ben joins the team led by enigmatic Professor Rosa (Kevin Spacey), the movie pretty much somersaults into an hour or so of pure Vegas glitter. It's all about the lights, the costumes, the money, and the excitement. Not only does Ben quickly make all the money he needs for medical school, he also gets a new life. As one of his teammates tells him before their first trip, "The best thing about Vegas is that you can become anyone you want." And for the smart kid who has never done much more than work hard and keep to a life in the shadows, his new life is almost intoxicating. "For the first time in my life, the world made it easy for me," says Ben. "And I liked it."

But in a world where free rides are never supposed to come easily, eventually Ben's new life begins to crumble. Although the group's scheme is based on mathematical logic and choreographed signals, it is only so long before emotion enters their equation and begins to throw off their game. Since what they are doing is not exactly looked kindly upon on the Vegas Strip, their uncanny "luck" begins to turn a few heads. And after Ben finds himself in the hands of an angry pit boss, off the team, out of money, and in a bit of academic trouble, he also learns the difficult lesson that not only is the free ride rarely easy, the easy ride is rarely free.

As Rosa tells Ben soon after he botches a night at the tables, "This is a business. You are only as good to me as the money you make." And since Ben has quickly gone from Rosa's biggest money maker to a money drain, Rosa just as quickly goes from Ben's personal genie to his very own dream stealer.

But thankfully for Ben and for us, we live in a world that is about more than just logic, calculation, and business. There will come times when we will fall short. There will be instances where we will let ourselves and others down. But although business and logic might say that leaves us short, miserable, and deep in debt, love says otherwise. Even when we have nothing left to give, love will give us what we need without asking for anything in return. As Paul says in Ephesians 2:8, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works."

And so, with a bit of a twist thrown in at the end to make sure that Rosa gets his due and Ben and his friends at least come away with what they had earned before they joined Rosa's crew, 21 comes to a close as it should. Adventure has been had and life experiences have added to the resume. We know that one way or another, Ben will be able to pay for medical school. And at the end of it all, everyone seems to realize that while very few rides are easy and very few tickets are free, when love is in the picture, there will always be a way to get to wherever we need to go.