Print | Send to friend | Email update

Related Links Movies Home

Sponsored Links

Director Steven Soderbergh and star George Clooney gathered together a bunch of their Hollywood mates for this all-star remake of the 1960 heist film.

Clooney plays Danny Ocean, a recently paroled thief who plans to take revenge on Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), the guy who stole his wife Tess (Julia Roberts), by stealing $163 million from the Casino Benedict owns.

So he gathers together associates old and new to make up his team, including Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt), Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon in a role originally intended for Mark Wahlberg), Basher Tarr (Don Cheadle), Frank Catton (Bernie Mac) and Saul Bloom (Carl Reiner).

Director Steven Soderbergh, whose flourishing-then-floundering career got back on track with the 1998 George Clooney-starring crime thriller Out of Sight, came to Ocean's 11 after the double-hit success of Traffic and Erin Brokovich. Coming off two "serious dramas", he said his goal with Ocean's 11 was "to make a movie that has no desire except to give pleasure from beginning to end".

And despite a mild air of permeating smugness from the actors, and an entirely predictable plot, that's basically what Ocean's 11 does. It's fluid filmmaking with an attractive cast and pleasing Las Vegas locations that coasts along casually.

To get the film made, the major names all took pay cuts - if they'd all been paid their standard rates, the film would've cost over $200 million.

There are heaps of cameos in the film - including Lennox Lewis and Angie Dickinson, who starred in the original film.

But the best cameos occur in a particularly amusing early scene, which has Pitt's character teaching a bunch of Hollywood teen stars how to play poker. Various real-life actors appear to play themselves in this scene - Topher Grace (That 70s Show), Barry Watson (7th Heaven), Shane West (Once & Again), Joshua Jackson (Dawson's Creek) and Holly Marie Combs (Charmed) - and they play themselves as vapid morons. It's classic.

The original film starred what was known at the time as the Rat Pack - Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jnr and Peter Lawford. It was better known for its cast than its craft, and wasn't half the success the remake became.

Show me the funny!