incomplete...

Rating: Null/10 (5 April 2002)

Finally got around to seeing this, as i believe mr. soderberg is one of our time's great auteurs. i must say that this substantially lacks key elements to be considered a great film- a mild, in-your-face satire is more like it. yes, there are cool stars looking and sounding cool as usual with a good number of heart-throbs and soderberg regulars, but aside from all the quick one-liners and humorously photographed gags, there really isn't one character developed enough to feel anything for. true, we want to see them pull this heist off, but the 'pulling off' seemed way too quick and easy (aside from my generous suspension of disbelief) for this comically imbalanced crew. Also, they seemed to just walk away with all that money with little to no conflict and we are left to believe that all will be forgotten. in other words, we want more. we hardly see julia roberts' character and would like her and her relationship with garcia's character developed more and perhaps a more personal quarrel between garcia and clooney. as for garcia's character, as tough as we're told he is, we hardly see it and he's not enough of a slimeball to make us want to see him fall. clooney's character is only really effective if you're still influenced by his 'jack foley' in 'out of sight. bottom line, too many unbelievable characters for such a quickly devised and implemented scheme with very little resolution. though there are some quality gags and well directed action sequences, we want more, a lot more. i don't feel anything is given away in this review since the whole mood of the film suggests outcome.