Lifeless Disappointment

Rating: 5/10 (7 November 2001)

I got to see an early screening of Ocean's Eleven and it was a huge disappointment, right from the beginning. The huge ensemble cast, the great cinematography and editing, wonderful sound...nothing saves this film. I haven't seen the original film, so someone else will have to comment on its significance to this movie.
If you've seen one heist film, you've seen everything that this film will try to offer. These are stock characters going through a stock exercise in crime. Pitt and Clooney try to be charming, but they seem to be cannibalizing their own careers, dredging up pale imitations of characters they played in previous films (Out of Sight, for Clooney). Even some of the music, instrumentals by David Holmes, is taken from older albums. There are no surprises in this movie and very little chemistry between the characters. The central conceit is that you are supposed to want these guys to pull off the crime, but with a veritable sea of generic criminals, there really isn't a way to get the audience to focus enough to care about them. Clooney and Julia Roberts have almost zero chemistry (although the film's dialogue improves 90% when the two of them interact).
The attempts at humor in Ocean's Eleven are embarrassingly flaccid; particularly when you take into account that Soderbergh and Clooney worked together in Out of Sight, a film that surpasses Ocean's Eleven on every possible front, but particularly in its comedic delivery and pacing.
There's no doubt in my mind that Ocean's Eleven will be successful. Others in the screening were touching their throats and praising the film shamelessly. The ensemble cast and the dearth of adult movies will position Ocean's Eleven favorably. But discriminating movie-goers will want to avoid this dull and unamusing exercise in genre.