“Ocean’s Eleven” was when Steven Soderbergh took the art house to the mainstream. It wasn’t Oscar bait like “Traffic” and “Erin Brokovich,” and it wasn’t gritty and experimental like “Sex, Lies and Videotape.” It was just pure Hollywood fun in the biggest way possible, which is probably the reason why most critics were unkind to it. To see such a gigantic studio picture with no lofty ambitions come from an otherwise serious director was like a concert pianist pounding out a little honky-tonk, as Roger Ebert put it in his 2001 review.
But to see how much it gets right, how different it feels and how unique it looks at every moment in comparison to similar Hollywood capers like it is to realize that “Ocean’s Eleven” is a great film after all, and a fun one.
It’s the story of Danny Ocean (George Clooney), who has just been paroled from prison and immediately decides his first job out will be to rob three Las Vegas casinos, all of them owned by the Vegas titan Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia). He enlists 10 other agents all with their own parts in this elaborate scheme, the ranks of which are made up of fellow Hollywood elite. Brad Pitt as Rusty is possibly at the top of his fame and his looks, the late Bernie Mac finds the best screen acting role of his career, Carl Reiner and Elliot Gould are hysterical in a way their younger counterparts couldn’t possibly be, and Matt Damon’s timid Linus was enough to finally make him a permanent A-lister.
Every clue in this complicated heist film is punctuated with a punchline in Ted Griffin’s screenplay, and the cast has a ball riffing on every one of them. They each get their own chance to break out of their confined parts as well, with Pitt sporting a ’70s wig and glasses and fulfilling any hopes he may have had of being a doctor on a daytime soap. Don Cheadle too is wonderfully offbeat, sporting a thick, yet convincing British accent that even his cast is perplexed by when he says “We’re in deep Barney.”
But what Soderbergh does that another director would not is to understand how to deal with the boilerplate. To motivate Rusty, Ocean gives a brief speech about seizing the moment and waiting for that perfect hand to come, only to bet the house in the end. Rusty calls his bluff that such a speech must’ve been rehearsed, and what would otherwise have been an obligatory moment of seriousness in a light Hollywood comedy is now a fourth wall breaking gem. Every time Soderbergh leads you to believe he’s getting serious, he pulls a fast one on you. This then, shows a director with a firm hand.
Again, Soderbergh replaces the generic orchestra that would otherwise underscore heist tension and provides jazzy smoothness in its place. Everything flashy is handled with a subtle awareness, every routine story telling method is intentionally overdone with a wipe cut, and every image that would otherwise be ordinary, Soderbergh turns into something extraordinary. Look at where he places the camera as Ocean and Rusty drive to a bar to hear his brilliant plan. Notice the choice of songs and light filters in each of Reuben’s flashbacks. Absorb how Soderbergh uses the camera to trick you in the film’s brilliant finale.
Everything that would be exhausting here is excusable because it’s all so fun, and it’s a fine line that Soderbergh unfortunately crosses in each of the two “Ocean’s” sequels. But most movies wouldn’t take so many liberties, or should I say gambles. Soderbergh doesn’t bet the house when that perfect hand comes along, and we all win big for it.
4 stars