Ocean's Eleven

Released 2001
Stars George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, Don Cheadle, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Elliott Gould, Carl Reiner, Shaobo Qin, Eddie Jemison, Bernie Mac
Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Serious pianists sometimes pound out a little honky-tonk, just for fun. That's like what Steven Soderbergh is doing in "Ocean's Eleven." This is a standard genre picture, a remake of the 1960 Frank Sinatra caper, and Soderbergh, who usually aims higher, does it as a sort of lark. It's slick, all right: directors this good don't usually handle material this routine. It has yearnings above its natural level, as if hoping to redeem itself and metamorphose into a really good movie.

The movie stars George Clooney, who can be powerfully impassive better than almost anybody, as Danny Ocean, fresh out of prison and eager for a new job. He's a smooth operator who, his parole board notes, figured in a dozen investigations where he was never charged. He contacts his old sidekick Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) with a scheme to steal millions from not one but three Las Vegas casinos. Amazingly, the movie specifies and shoots in real casinos (the Mirage, the MGM Grand and the Bellagio) and incorporates the destruction of the Desert Inn.

Summary by Roger Ebert

I wasn't expecting much from this flick, and I was still disappointed. The only reason I watched it was because I love Las Vegas, and I wanted to see how they showcased the location. Although they shot in the actual casinos, it didn't feel like it. The fun and excitement was missing from the film's tone, and the story was so standard, I found it boring. Part of the problem was the sheer number of people involved. Danny (George Clooney) has eleven cohorts, so there are too many characters to get anything more than just a plot in motion. Also, most of his cohorts lack charisma. Clooney is good playing the same character he always plays, Brad Pitt is charismatic, Carl Reiner is very good, but Don Cheadle's cockney accent is horrendous, and I don't remember the other seven guys. In the end Julia Roberts' character gets upset, because someone would choose $160 million over her. C'mon, Julia, you're gorgeous, but there is a limit. --Bill Alward, January 4, 2003