lightheaded heist

Rating: Null/10 (5 June 2003)

I admire some of Soderbergh's films - The Limey especially. I went into Ocean's 11 having heard that it wasn't much more than a celebrity parade dressed up with a heist plot and some nice camera work. It probably should have ended with the homage to The Right Stuff where the gang seems to evaporate in front of the Vegas fountain. Packing the expensive talent into a pointless epilogue drained most of the goodwill I had left for the film.
Some of the things I hated were - the lighting of Julia Roberts in her first scene was  bad. Why give her a mongo upper-lip shadow? Farting away the whole `Pitt is mad at Clooney for making the job personal' with a single line was  okay I guess, since I really didn't care about the subplot at that point. It's a good thing electronic components can just bounce back from an EMP.
On the other hand, the script did stay ahead of any expectations I had as far as the particulars of the heist (which was kept vague anyway - when the film was over, I couldn't say where the vault was in relation to the casino floor or the surveillance room, whereas I could draw you a map of the heists in Rififi, Asphalt Jungle, Topkapi or The Red Circle). I loved Eliot Gould. Andy Garcia was beamed in from a better movie - all of the other actors are winking at the camera and striking poses in their gloriously outlandish outfits. I love and admire long takes, but I do occasionally get a caffeine kick out of editing that looks like it was snipped from footage taken by a swarm of bees. With all the rumors around right now about remaking some of the most unique accomplishments in film history, I really appreciate the fact that Soderbergh decided to breath some life and style into what was a `meh' title.
Ocean's is like People magazine getting stuffed into a decent Bond film. Nothing wrong with that.