"Ocean's Eleven"

Mikometer Rating: 8 of 10

Steven Soderbergh is fast proving himself ready to take the crown away from Martin Scorsese as the most satisfying director of films who is still living. Since Scorsese, with "Bringing Out the Dead", failed me as an audience member, and whose "Gangs of New York" has been postponed till next year,I still have a bad feeling about Marty right now. Soderbergh directed "Traffic", an ensmble piece which was literally "all over the map" yet made for cohesive and incisive storytelling, was one of the most satisfying films of 2000. Returning to the comic sensibility he displayed with "Out of Sight" a few years ago, and starring the same lead, George Clooney, the updated "Ocean's Eleven" is a sheer delight of the filmic language, in which the director brings all the cinematic artistry he collected in "Traffic", and displays it here, in a much lighter piece of fluff.

The fact that "Ocean's Eleven" is a piece of fluff makes it all that more of an accomplishment, and this film is one of my favorite ten best of the year. While watching, I almost included it in my "list of five" for Best Picture consideration, but on second thought figured there ought to be more reasonable fare that I just haven't seen. "Ocean's Eleven" is a delight, however, and a very good movie. I always like to classify that I make a distinction between "movies" and "films". There is no "message" here. The characterizations are not deep, and theme is nonexistant. "Ocean's Eleven" is surely not a film. It is meant to be populist entertainment in the extreme. This is a "movie". This is Steven Soderbergh's take on the most nepotistic of caper films; a project designed in the early sixties, to give the Rat Pack a vehicle while performing in the nightclubs in Las Vegas. Fuel for the myth of Frank's Insular group, the original movie is nothing but an ad for the sensibility of the Rat Pack, and Soderburgh throws that whole concept in the fire, except for the fact that he populates his movie with enough current box office stars that the audience should be in on the joke from the beginning. The fact that the actors all play it straight, as if they were in "Traffic" adds to the mix.

I didn't even scan this project with my radar until I saw the previews. It was then that I was attracted to George Clooney's take on Danny Ocean, realized that this was really shot in modern Vegas, particularly at the Bellagio resort, and started wanting to see the film. The original "Ocean's Eleven" took place in another Las Vegas. The new film took place in the new Vegas. Until I saw the previews, this subtle difference didn't make itself clear. After seeing scenes of modern Vegas, the need to see quotient rose considerably.

The movie is a romp, sets up and pays off each scene beautifully, and with a panache not seen in cinema for a long time. The acting talent, chosen for marquee value, and also some Soderbergh "regulars" exhibit their chops with delightful exhuberance. Clooney, who was the best thing in the Coen's "Brother, Where Art Thou" has just the right combination of smarm and righteousness to pull off playing a character who could easily become a cipher, or an impression. Each of the many members of the cast are given a "signature scene" in which their character is etched in the mind of the audience, and each one is outstanding.

Elliot Gould, Carl Reiner, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts, Don Cheadle all get nods as doing the best job they can, and enjoying the experience. Brad Pitt, who can sometimes play strange with his persona, evokes nothing less that movie star wattage in his role. Soderburgh, like Scorsese, works a cast to his best advantage. This cast works exhuberantly for their director. Clooney, Roberts, and Cheadle have worked for Soderburgh before. The often overlooked Andy Garcia is stunning and cold as the casino owner who stole Danny Ocean's girl, Roberts, and who is the target of the caper.

I really wanted to see the Patrick Swaze starrer, "2000 Miles to Graceland", but that film skipped the "planning" scenes central to any caper film, and seemed to have been an excuse for the filmmakers to shoot up Vegas like in a Bruckheimer film directed by Michael Bay. Disappointment overall. With "Ocean's Eleven", primed by that experience, I was braced for the worst. What I received, was pure bliss. Stephen Soderburgh is an artist, he chooses and nurtures his acting talent very well, and he shoots the movie himself, with handheld camera, and it isn't "artsy" or undeniably "handheld" like in some movies. The cinematography enhances and propels the story, as in the glory days of film, before DePalma et al started swinging the camera around as if it were a weapon.

I really think this could be Oscar material, for the technical skill alone, and for the ensemble acting and pacing the film affords. It won't be nominated, but is the kind of film I will watch in ten or fifteen years, and tend to experience the joys of it's existence all over again. Some critics, Turan specifically in the LA Times, stated that it runs out of steam before it ends, but I think this is an incorrect assesment. The ending, with the gang meeting after the heist in front of the fountains of the Bellagio, where I rarely feel anything less than a spiritual awakening, is very powerful to me, and the movie feels just right, from start to finish. This is not art, but it is a colorful and involving entertainment. That's all I really ask for when I enter the theater, and "Ocean's Eleven" delivers in spades.