Movie Notes: Ocean’s Eleven

February 18th, 2010

= 4 stars

Starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts
Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Synopsis

Danny Ocean (George Clooney) brings together a team of oddballs in order to pull off an audacious Las Vegas casino heist.

The Good

• The heist is quite complex with enough twists to both maintain interest and seem fraught with possible failure. Exactly what the plan entails is smartly kept secret until it’s well into motion and plays out before our very eyes.
• Charming, efficient, yet simple direction by Soderbergh. While set in glammy and glitzy in sunny Las Vegas, the camera is often handheld and organic. Sodebergh adds all sorts of inventive touches, like focusing on a pine air freshener which seems odd at the time, but proves important later (it’s in a particular truck), or balloons blocking the camera, demonstrating visually what transpires moments later when the same balloons block the casino security camera. Some crucial plot points are communicated with surprising efficiency, like a flashback where Tess recalls Danny slipping a cellphone into her pocket, and at best, the crucial payoff where Terry Benedict realizes who exactly did what and how screwed he is — everything finally plays out before our very eyes, and we realize what happened just he does.
• In some sense this film works as a love story. It’s entirely possible Danny Ocean concocted the scheme just to steal Tess back from Benedict.
• A good amount of actorly chemistry between Pitt and Clooney. Polite, joshing insults are met with a smirk and acknowledgement that cocky yet relaxed confidence will be one of the reasons why they’ll pull this whole thing off.

The Bad

• Tess isn’t directly involved in the heist and mostly serves as window dressing to the manly posturing and antics.

Conclusion

I made my way back to Ocean’s 11 after watching the sequels (Ocean’s Twelve, Ocean’s Thirteen), and it holds up surprisingly well. It’s easily the best of the three movies, enjoyable enough that I can see, possibly, returning years from now to give it that extra star.

IMDB: Ocean’s Eleven
Wikipedia: Ocean’s Eleven
Rotten Tomatoes: Ocean’s Eleven