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 anny Ocean has just been released from prison after a
4-year stint. He's a confidence man (re: conman) who has lost his wife, Tess,
after being incarcerated, something he hasn't accepted yet, and doesn't plan to.
He's back in the real world, alone, and with a scheme almost as impossible as it
is ambitious. You see, Danny wants to break into an impenetrable casino vault in
Las Vegas that houses the stash of 3 casinos, all owned by the same man, and
steal $150 million. If that isn't interesting enough, the man who owns the
casinos is presently dating Tess, Danny's ex-wife, and Danny has more than just
a professional need to hurt his ex-wife's current beau.
That, in a nutshell, is
all you need to know going into director Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's 11
and all you'll ever need to know coming out of it, for the simple fact that very
little happens in-between.
The film stars George Clooney as Danny Ocean, Julia Roberts
as Tess, Brad Pitt as Rusty Ryan, Danny's longtime partner-in-crime, and Andy
Garcia as Benedict, Tess's new love interest and the man in Danny's gun sights.
Other notable names round out the cast, comprising the rest of Danny's
"11" -- the 11 operatives who joins his team to rob Benedict's casino.
Soderbergh regular Don Cheadle shows up as Basher, a Brit with his own bag of
phrases, and Elliot Gould is a local tough who bankrolls Danny's scheme in order
to get back at Benedict for stealing his casino. It's a great cast, the kind
only a man with Soderbergh's reputation can assemble. People flock to work with
Soderbergh, who is quickly gaining a reputation as the next Steven Spielberg.
Heck, they even have the same first name and same two initials! Coincidence or
fate? You decide.
If anyone has seen Soderbergh's Out of Sight, also
starring George Clooney, they may get a sense of déjà vu. Besides the same
actor playing the lead in both films, the two films have the same vibe -- the
"cool" vibe. Ocean's 11 is filled with finger-snapping beats
that seems taken from the original Ocean's 11, made in 1960 starring the
Rat Pack. Not having seen the original, I couldn't compare the two movies,
although I hear the 2001 incarnation is a very faithful adaptation of the 1960
version.
Soderbergh's version plays out more like a stylish how-to-rob-a-bank
instruction video instead of an actual movie. In fact, compared to Soderbergh's
masterful and multi-layered Traffic, Ocean's 11 looks like a shell
of a movie. There really is no characterization going on, very little intensity
or even a sense of dread for a heist film, which relies on the audience asking
themselves, "Oh no, are they going to get caught? Are they going to get
away with it?" Ocean's 11 is filmed, acted, and plays out like a
linear instruction manual, and by the time the heist itself is pulled off, you
realize you've never felt that Danny and his crew could get caught. Actually,
you never got the feeling that this crew of oddballs could fail.
Despite the lack of tension, Ocean's 11 succeeds
because it's a fun movie to watch. Yes, there's not much happening and you get
the feeling no one's ever in any danger, and you know the job is going to go off
without a hitch -- and even if any hitch shows up, it'll be dealt with. And yet,
it's a blast to watch them hatch their elaborate plan and then pull it off.
There are some minor surprises at the end, but they're minor at best.
Although
you might wonder why you're supposed to hate Garcia's Benedict so much, since as
written and played, the man is not entirely unlikable. Are we just suppose to
dislike him because he's a billionaire and he orders Danny beaten up for
sniffing around his girl? Or that the guy runs everything with clockwork
precision and has an anal-retentive sense of security? Not at all. In this way,
Benedict isn't a good villain. He's just not, well, all that villainous.
The rest of the cast does fine. Everyone exudes coolness
and walks, talks, and acts like they know they're in a movie instead of actually
pulling off a heist. As I said, there's never any sense of danger in the movie.
Julia Roberts, as Tess, is not all that convincing. As a personal aside, I don't
find her particularly attractive, and as written and played, her Tess isn't
exactly someone two men would battle over. Her romance with Clooney's Danny came
off as more of a sidebar rather than an actual plot point. Did anyone out
there didn't think she'd "see the errors of her ways" and dump
Benedict for Danny in the end?
Still, despite all its faults, I can't help but enjoy the
film. It's just, well, cool.
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