Ocean's Eleven is like a machine you buy because you heard it makes homemade cookies. Then you get the machine home, open it, and instead of making cookies, it makes a cow. And then that cow hops in your truck, drives to the store, and buys you a package of Chips Ahoy. Sure, the cookies aren't homemade, but now you have a cow that can drive and use money...and that, friends, is worth far more.
Steven Soderbergh's remake of a 1960s Rat Pack classic is a lot like that (really)...you think you have a heist movie, and yes, things are stolen and vaults are busted and people avoid laser beams while gliding down ropes dressed entirely in black, but really you have a magical little film that uses the standards of the heist genre as a MacGuffin and really focuses in on more delightful things like great cinematography (also by Soderbergh, using a pseudonym), a powerfully effective jazz score and charismatic movie stars having lots of fun. I, for one, would rather that any day.
The film follows Danny Ocean (George Clooney), just out of prison for theft, as he tries to win his wife (Julia Roberts) back from the smarmy Terry Bendict (Andy Garcia). Benedict owns three Las Vegas casino, and Ocean decides to rob them, bringing in a crew of ten other haphazarded con-men (including Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac and Casey Affleck) to get the job done.
But, seriously, the plot? Completely irrelevant. If I told you that they succeeded with the robbery in the end, would you be surprised? Would you even care? I bet not, by the time the film is over, because the film isn't about the robbery at all, but about personality. George Clooney plays an exaggerated version of himself. So does Matt Damon. And Andy Garcia. And Bernie Mac. Or at least they play exaggerated versions of the way their seen by the public (I'm sure Andy Garcia isn't really a vicious SOB off camera... but he sure seems like he could be one). The only actors, actually, who seems to be doing anything even remotely similar to acting are Don Cheadle (who plays the whole film, and both sequels, with a spot-on cockney accent) and Julia Roberts. She carries the entire weight of the plot on her shoulders-- she's the only dynamic character, and whether she goes back to her husband depends less on her personality and more on what the story requires.
And, yes, when a film stars the four biggest caucasian movie stars in the world (had they thrown in Will Smith and Denzel Washington, the reel would have probably burst into flames) essentially playing themselves, you get a movie that is a lot of fun. There's a great scene between Clooney and Garcia at dinner where they use tone of voice to say everything the dialogue doesn't. And there are scenes where Matt Damon does comically earnest and naive about as well as anyone can. And Casey Affleck and Scott Caan (as brothers) have comedic chemistry and anarchic spirit that light up the screen. And consider a scene where Brad Pitt teaches C-List celebs (Shane West, Holly Marie Combs, Pacey Whit...err, Joshua Jackson, among others) to play poker before effortlessly fleecing them out of their money-- with that much self-deprecating going on, you'd expect king of the hill, A-list Pitt to come out looking a bit like a jackass. He doesn't.
So, the movie is a lot of fun. But, just being fun, does not a great movie make. And Steven Soderbergh (Sex, Lies and Videotape, Traffic, Out of Sight ), one of the best directors to emerge in the past 25 years or so, has made a virtuoso film on a technical level. In fact, the style reminds me of that of one of my favorite of all films, Woody Allen's Manhattan, where he cast the titular borough in black and white, shot some of the most lovely widescreen compositions ever put to film, and scored the whole thing with sublime tracks by George Gershwin. Soderbergh doesn't shoot in black and white (considering the neon gaudiness of Vegas, how inappropriate would that be?) but he does show us most of Vegas's landmarks in lovely widescreen compositions that make the city almost a character itself, a living, breathing place that these characters inhabit. He shoots inside real casinos and catches that unbearably bright yet still somehow dim and shadowy look that real casino's have. And he sets the whole thing to a jazz score that isn't as epic as Gershwin, but it's a lot of fun and keeps the mood bouncy and lightweight. Actually, though, it's not all jazz-- there's also a gloriously well-used Elvis remix.
Earlier I mentioned the sequels to the film and yes, there are two, and yes, you've probably already seen both of them. The second actually gets too bogged down in the idea of 'movie stars having fun' and almost completely abandons the plot. I really liked it, too. The third, however, found too much plot and explained too little of it, and, with the exception of a few sequences, wasn't very fun either. But this one is the best, and should be the perfect template for big star vehicles in the future- never sacrifice the plot for your actors, but the actors are really all that matter. In Ocean's Eleven, that's the way it is. And that's the way it should be.
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