- The lesson to take home from Ocean's 11 is that crooks should try to have FUN with a heist. Apparently, those serious heist films I've been watching have been going about it all wrong. Consider a sampling of the classics: The Asphalt Jungle, The Killing, Le Cercle Rouge, Thief, Reservoir Dogs. Great films all, but nary a single happy ending. I now realize that this is because the crooks didn't have enough fun. One way to increase the total amount of fun is to involve as many people as possible in the heist. The traditional objection to this approach has been that more people means less money per person and an increased chance of slip-ups or double-crosses. Not true: More people equals more fun equals success. Period.
- The basic plot of Ocean's 11 is as simple and illogical as the preceding argument would suggest. A crew of crooks, none of whom seem to be in desperate financial straits, rips off a set of Las Vegas casinos. The ringleaders are Danny Ocean (George Clooney), recently paroled from prison, and Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt), who makes a living out of teaching young, dimwitted, uncredited stars how to gamble. Although I've never been especially impressed with either Clooney or Pitt as actors, they are admittedly exactly the Hollywood star personas required for roles like these. The rest of the crew consists of specialists. Linus (Matt Damon) is an accomplished pickpocket, Frank (Bernie Mac) is a card dealer, Basher (the uncredited Don Cheadle) is a demolitions expert, and so on. Perhaps the most underappreciated member of the crew is Yen (Shaobo Qin), who has to spend half an hour in the world's most crippling yoga position before executing an astonishing backflip. He deserved more than 9% of the take, I think.
- Did I mention that all three casinos are owned by the same person? Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) is a slick professional who is in the process of muscling Reuben Tishkoff (Elliot Gould) out of the casino business. He's also stolen Tess (Julia Roberts) away from her ex-husband, Danny Ocean. I think we're meant not to like him. Needless to say, he has surrounded his shared vault with an impenetrable web of security that, also needless to say, the eleven thieves manage to penetrate. The exact details of the heist are so intricate that there is no point in relating them. I'll only note that sufficiently many layers of subterfuge are employed that the audience feels like it has followed along, even though it really hasn't.
- Thanks in large part to the talents of the director, Steven Soderbergh, Ocean's 11 is an immensely watchable piece of fluff. It's not a great film, but enough skill and thought went into it that the result is entertaining. Although the writer, Ted Griffen, gets in a few great lines between Tess and Danny (Tess: "You're a thief and a liar." Danny: "I only lied about being a thief."), the film wisely follows Elvis' advice by providing more action than conversation. The result is a fun heist film that even manages to escape with a happy ending.
- Gotta appreciate the Miami Vice references in the footage from the closest anybody has ever come to robbing a Las Vegas casino.
