Ocean's Eleven

I was on a plane on Dec. 31, 2002 headed towards Hong Kong about to cross the International Date Line into 2003. My family had told me about how good this film was and during the flight, I got watch it for the first time. “Ocean’s Eleven” appears to be quite a bit different from the original Rat Pack film but there are a few similarities. Steven Soderbergh made this film his own and because of that, many fans forget that this franchise started out as a remake. This film had great characters in the script but this kind of movie needed a few things to be successful: a big star cast who could have fun making the movie and a unique style. All this was pulled off as perfectly as the heist itself and the ending becomes a certain call.

The story starts off well. We hear the question: “What would you do if released?” and it becomes a music cue. That combined with the look of Danny’s face tells us that we are in for something big and fun. Rusty is introduced as a guy with a boring and rough life since Danny left. I like the poker game with the actors because Danny and Rusty use it to resolve brief differences and make amends at the expense of others without their knowledge. It seems to be that Rusty’s guys got Danny caught and so Rusty owes Danny but Danny wants Rusty in on the job as a friend and not as a debtor. Danny bets big in the poker game and Rusty can tell that Danny as a great hand. Rusty exploits the con even more by tempting the actors to stay in the game. This little trick of Danny’s helps Rusty get a little revenge for the stress that his students have been causing him and this helps win Rusty over to the idea that Danny has planned. Rusty and Danny love deceiving and coning other people together and this happens even with the audience when we believe that Danny has been kicked out of the job. The sequence that shows the three most successful robberies in Vegas is well done because of music, editing and Elliot Gould. Not only is Danny’s plan daring but it is much, much bigger than anything tried before and nothing else has worked. When you have a team of eleven characters (more so when you include “the target” and “the wild card”) you need to introduce them well. For each member of the team, we have to go to all sorts of places in the US from San Diego to Florida (Basher’s scene is my favorite). I think I have been to the train station in Chicago where Linus gets off after his pull. The music, colour and sometimes the cinematography are different each time someone is recruited. Tess and Terry are both introduced in a convincing way as well. The opening meeting with the whole team is a well written plot point. You have to know the good news and the bad news. The job sounds way to impossible thanks to Saul’s lines at the end. This makes the rest of the movie exciting because the audience has no idea about the exit strategy. Even though Rusty mentions all the names of the various cons in the job early in the movie, we don’t know what they mean. Something important to the story is that the heist has to be personal. This is the case in all the Ocean movies and in the first film; it is Tess that Danny is partially after. The setbacks are well thought up. I like Basher’s problem because the solution requires taking the job’s impact as far reaching as the whole city. The pinch takes out the power of all of Las Vegas and that is funny. As mentioned before, we the audience don’t know that Danny is still part of the job until the scene with Bulldog, the Bruiser. We think that Danny is in big trouble until Bruiser turns out to be a nice guy who is Danny’s friend. It is such a funny surprise to me and the subsequent fake fight makes Bruiser one of my favorite characters in the franchise. At one point, everyone including the audience doesn’t know where the money and our heroes have gone. The hotel room is empty and the cell phone has been left behind. The “Ella Fitzgerald” is uncovered and flashbacks reveal the “Miss Daisy”. It is a great discloser and with all the fun and excitement in the film, the ending is a moment for us to reflect and applaud the cast. The pace and mood of the ending is so different from the rest of the movie and it is all thanks to “Clair de Lune”. I have even replicated this ending in one of my own movies. We have, as mentioned, a great certain call in front of the Bellagio fountains as our heroes walk away unscripted. The prison scenes at the beginning and the end of the film create bookends to the story and organization is something subconsciously needed in a film.

“You’re gonna need a crew as nuts as you are.” They may not be completely nuts but they are fun to watch. This is one of those ensemble casts that introduced me to a lot of actors as was the case with "Apollo 13". Half of team I already knew but the other half were introduced to me by way of this film, including Andy Garcia. The actors in this film are great and their fame makes the movie fun to see them all together. Their introductions in the film are perfect. The portrayal of when each team member is recruited effectively imprints upon our minds the type of people that they are. All of Ocean’s eleven are different and perform various roles. You need that a heist or adventure movie. If you recall “the hero’s journey” as written about by Joseph Campbell, the hero needs friends & sidekicks and they are never exactly similar as seen in the “Fellowship of the Ring”, “Star Wars”, “Harry Potter”, etc. Some characters in the film are born con men. George Clooney plays the perfectly leading man as only he can. Brad Pitt’s persona makes him perfect as “the detail man” and 2nd in command. Elliot Gould plays a great wealthy casino owner with an appealing personality. Ruben has flaws but that doesn’t matter to us watching him as a financier of the job. He looks like a million bucks. Don Cheadle’s performance is so good and the accent he chooses for Basher makes him so hilarious. He shines in the scene when they decide to use the pinch and that is tough to do when covered in gunk. I love when he grabs his crotch as he is detonating the device. It seems like the explosion experts always stand out from the rest of their teams. Bernie Mac’s persona also makes him an ideal con man and I can’t believe that he was the first member of Ocean’s eleven to pass away in real life. Watching him is bitter sweet in this franchise as “the inside man” and I love “the Jim Brown” scene that he does. The other six members of the team don’t seem like the kind of guys who would rob anything but that is the point. The Malloy twins are rednecks and you need wacky people in a team this large. Their love-fight relationship appears to be a flaw but it actually serves purposes for the job and the film. They are great characters as the guys who have to be everywhere and provide transportation. They are reminiscent of Mad Murdock from “The A-Team”. You need a nervous nelly and you get that in Livingstone as “the eye in the sky” or the hacker. Carl Reiner looks and acts like he should be in retirement and thus his fake death feels legit. Shaobo Qin is important not just as “the grease man” but he provides the variety needed in such a large cast. I love the quirk that he only talks in Mandarin and people talk to him in English. Finally, a rookie in the group can represent the audience and provide additional tension. Matt Damon, famous as he is, plays Linus very well and his youth at this point in his career was important to the character. I like how Linus gets to hang with Danny during the robbery.

There are other random reasons as to why this movie is so good. Soderbergh provides the film with a unique and cool style. There are also funny little touches to be enjoyed throughout the film. The editing is artistic and noticeable because it includes a lot wipes. David Holmes’ music also adds to the style. I like how real TV actors like Joshua Jackson and Holly Marie Combs step in to play themselves trying to learn how to play poker. It is funny how Topher Grace attracts attention outside the club while George Clooney and Brad Pitt do not. Real boxers, Las Vegas celebrities and HBO help out to make the boxing match feel real. These boxers did end up fighting each other for real later in life. I also like how during the robbery that the Malloy’s disguise the money cart as a food cart and then later, Livingston is eating the food that they brought.

I went to the Las Vegas strip and loved it. The Bellagio fountains were awesome and I sure wish they would change the music to “Clair de Lune”. While the movie feels like a more glamorized Vegas than the one I saw, I still love “Ocean’s Eleven”. Its style, acting, story and characters make this film the greatest heist movie of the last decade even though it came out at the start of the decade. Some movies need a lot of big stars and this was one of them. Having fun making the film can greatly improve the chances of the movie being successful and that must have been the case with this film. You have almost 10 big stars in a film implying eleven main characters. You do the math.

4.5 Stars out of 5