Ocean's Eleven 2001
I thought this was a very entertaining movie. The ensemble cast is very good, although any movie with 11 characters (for starters) is going to have a hard time developing all of them. Brad Pitt and George Clooney are very good and Carl Reiner has a surprisingly large role. Essentially it’s just a heist movie rolled in with something like the Dirty Dozen, but it carries all of this off very well. The setup is good, and everything plays out like an episode of Mission Impossible (TV version, please). But where most producers would insist on explosions and violence, Soderbergh plays everything smart. Much of the cast is wasted, including Don Cheadle, Matt Damon, and especially Julia Roberts (whose part could have been played by a shiny trophy). Elliott Gould is awful as a Bob Guccione casino owner (I don’t know that he’s ever been good in anything, including MASH). But the draw for most was probably to get to work for a director at the top of his game as well as some of the best actors out there. It’s nice to have that kind of depth in a cast so large.
The writing often takes a back seat to developing the plot and side characters, but at times it really sizzles, in particular with one scene with Julia and George and in another where Matt Damon is accused of being a racist Nevada Gaming Commission representative.
My date fell asleep for part of the movie so I guess it does drag at times. But in general I think Soderbergh has done for the caper movie what the Coen Brothers have done with so many of their genre movies. It’s a great mix of the routine and the sublime.
I’ll give it an A-.
Owned on: DVD