VEGAS, BABY! VEGAS!

Rating: Null/10 (20 December 2001)

OCEAN'S ELEVEN (2001) ***1/2
Like a smooth cocktail tonic so best describes the way this re-imagining of The Rat Pack cult classic given a boost of star power and at-ease quicksilver savvy with its wink-and-a-nod interpretation of a team of thieves led by cool as a cucumber Danny Ocean (Clooney at his best) recently paroled from doing time in a New Jersey State prison who gets the ball rolling by embarking an impossible mission: knocking off three Las Vegas casinos.
Along for the ride is Ocean's buddy Rusty Ryan (Pitt equally deft in elan) who is dying a slow death by teaching poker to Hollywood actors (good sports Grace, West, Jackson and Combs as themselves in one of the film's funnier moments) and eager to get into some real dough. The duo enlist former casino honcho Reuben Tishkoff (a hilarious bit of gone to seed tackiness by Gould) who bankrolls the hatched plot when he learns it is involving his nemesis Terry Benedict (Garcia, sleek and sinister). Ocean's real ambition is to win back estranged wifeTess (Roberts as the girl' here on a lark) who also happens to be Terry's main squeeze. This only complicates an already improbable task at hand and Rusty is only two steps ahead of Danny's desires.
The motley crew assembled includes in-the-loop blackjack dealer Frank Cotton (the sublimely hilarious Mac); expert pick-pocket Linus Caldwell (Damon in low-key mode); old-timer grifter and semi-retired Saul Bloom (legend Reiner having a ball by pulling his foreign character work out of moth balls to high comic effect); knuckle-headed brothers Virgil and Turk Malloy (Affleck and Caan who have some inspired stupidity chemistry) who act as decoys/drivers; demotions expert Basher Tarr (Cheadle affecting a hokey Cockney accent that one feels is a total con to begin with); high tech nerd Livingston Dell (Jemison); and as "grease man", Chinese circus acrobat Yen (Qin).
The droll one-liners and casual dress storytelling doesn't seem like a stretch for recently Oscared director Soderbergh (thanks largely to the laconic and smartly paced screenplay by Ted Griffin) but it helps to have a crackerjack ensemble clearly having a field day with its improvisatory air about it. The mechaniques of the plot fall neatly and precisely into place like a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle: half the fun is doing the work itself.
Clooney clearly the star of the show wisely lets his co-horts get in some fine moments themselves such as Reiner as a Eurotrash millionaire manqué and the running gag of Pitt snacking on junk food with as much intensity as the proceedings at hand. Mac and Damon's racial encounter as part of the sting is one of the film's highlights in hilarity and Roberts is the crown jewel as the prize Danny clearly wants and is the no-brainer sub-plot to boot. The look of the film is all gleaming and spiffy thanks to Soderbergh himself who almost always does his own cinematography. Overall it's a lot of fun: Vegas, baby, Vegas! Frank, Dean and Sammy would've been proud.