Not fun enough as a comedy; not properly constructed to be drama

Rating: 5/10 (5 June 2010)

So-so redo of the classic rat-pack comedy/adventure made 40 years earlier. Although the movie has its moments, it lacks the heart and humor of the original, while taking itself way too seriously.
An all-star cast, but several people in the cast are relegated to two minutes of screen time, a waste for this calibre of talent. The people we do see most often are George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and Julia Roberts. Of these, Pitt and Damon fare best with the crime suspense approach the film takes. Clooney's character is written as the kind of failure in life type that could never devise and certainly not pull off a major caper like this. If the movie had shot for comedy, that would be OK. But it's not; it burdens itself with an absurd side plot of the casino crime boss, Roberts, and Clooney being in an old love triangle. And of course, Clooney is after revenge. Come on. Suspension of disbelief is one thing, but accepting that theme requires suspension of sanity. Julia Roberts, by the way, plays her unlikely character's situation way too straight. She's so low-key, she looks like she's asleep half the time. As for Clooney, his mugging wears thin after a while.
The way the casino security is depicted is ridiculous; again this would have been OK in a comedy. There's never more than about five or six of these brain-dead glorified bouncers running around; none of these inept fools could even catch his own Siamese twin. The state of the art high tech systems used in Vegas, according to this movie, couldn't prevent a blind man from wandering into a casino vault.
On the positive side, it still manages some brainless popcorn level entertainment. On that basis, it's about an average quality movie.