*** (out of ****)
Starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Andy Garcia, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts, Elliot Gould, Bernie Mack, and Casey Affleck.
Directed by Stephen Soderbergh
2001 PG13
Here is a movie that is, quite cheerfully, a lark. Fresh from winning his Oscar for best director for his large-canvas narcotics epic “Traffic” (2000), director Stephen Soderbergh has turned his attention to the jolly, comic tale of a band of con artists and thieves out to rob not one, not two, but three Las Vegas casinos. To complete this feat, Soderbergh has assembled some of today’s top lead and character actors, then thrown them into a simple plot with plenty of style, pinache, and no shortage of opportunities to crack wise and stare toughly at each other in order to compare the size of their, ahem, manhoods.
“Ocean’s Eleven” is basically silly without being overtly comic. Danny Ocean, played by George Clooney, is fresh from prison and decides to pull the biggest scam Las Vegas has ever seen: the robbery of the vault where three different casinos keep their money. The movie’s first act is his assembly of the crew. First off is Brad Pitt, the kind of sidekick who, except for the sex part, is more of a wife to Clooney than his real wife ever could be. They finish each other’s sentences, communicate with glances, and can predict the moves of the other pretty regularly; they’re Newman and Redford. Next are a whole slew of other people, and even if you don’t know all their names, you’ve seen their faces before. They’re the kind of character actors who can convey themselves in a few lines, including a sense of a past and of mystery, and then get out of the way of the real story. Last of all is Matt Damon, the Unproven New Guy, who provides something of a counterpoint to Clooney and Pitt’s assuredness, but not much of one. The assembly sequence consists of quick little vignettes in which the film shows off how well it has either learned the lingo of professional con artists or made up one of its own. Not surprisingly some of the dialogue is incomprehensible and this section of the film drags a bit.
Then it’s off to Las Vegas where the boys learn the ins-and-outs of the three casinos, all run by Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), who is the kind of cold, mechanical, and ruthless man Andy Garcia can play in his sleep. Lo and behold, he is dating Clooney’s ex-wife, played by Julia Roberts. Turns out Clooney’s ulterior motive in pulling off this most impossible of feats is to win her back. This sets up some tension between Pitt, who just wants the money, and Clooney, who might endanger the entire crew for the sake of his lost love.
The third act is the actual robbery, which is twisty, mostly implausible, and only makes a moderate amount of sense to the audience. It’s still a lot of fun, sort of the opposite of “The Score,” a slightly more serious picture which shows us every step of the crime and convinces us, at least during its run time, that it’s believable. But the crux of “Ocean’s Eleven” is style and performance. Pitt, Clooney, and Garcia are three of the coolest, most laid-back actors working today, each simmering inside with different varieties of intensity. The screenplay sketches its characters quickly and sharply, seldom wasting too much time on any of them and suggesting more depth than actually showing. Like George Roy Hill’s “The Sting” from 1973, a superior film that follows a similar confidence game, this isn’t a comedy of giant laughs but plenty of little sighs and grins. To keep us on our toes there are a lot of songs on the soundtrack, wild camera angles, and perhaps a few too many energetic edits. “Ocean’s Eleven” is a good time at the movies, nothing more. It knows that and never reaches for a message or sentimentality that it hasn’t earned and wouldn’t want to have in the first place.
Copyright 2002 Friday & Saturday Night