Franchise Friday: Ocean's Eleven (2001)
Soderbergh’s hangout heist holds up.
I’m not going to pretend that Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven is a cinematic masterpiece. Hell, it’s possibly the least of five films the director helmed in a stretch that began with Out of Sight in 1998. It’s not even the best George Clooney/Soderbergh collaboration (your reminder that if you haven’t seen Out of Sight, remedy that).
Ocean’s Eleven is a lark, a chance for Soderbergh and his ultra-cool cast to pal around in Las Vegas, remake an iconic but flawed Rat Pack film and gain the director some blockbuster cred after a string of critically lauded films. Its very appeal is in the fact that its characters never break a sweat; it’s playtime for everyone involved.
But what’s wrong with playtime? Especially here, when it’s this infectious, a viewing experience that feels like a great buzz and leaves you on a fantastic high?
Larks don’t have to be lazy
My favorite thing about Steven Soderbergh is his unpredictability. The man has been making movies for more than 30 years, and rarely feels repetitive. Ocean’s Eleven may have seemed like an anomaly at the time, following a run of eccentric indies and Oscar contenders, but in the vast scheme of his career — which includes dabbling in television, constant shifts between studio filmmaking and indie ventures, and executive producing a third Bill and Ted movie — the film and its three sequels feel right at home.
The director has never planted a foot in one genre; after his breakout with Sex, Lies and Videotape, he dabbled in surreal and experimental works like Kafka and Schizopolis, the coming-of-age film King of the Hill, and a concert film featuring monologist Spaulding Gray. His first stab at at studio filmmaking was the Elmore Leonard adaptation Out of Sight in 1998, which was a commercial bomb but feels like an Ocean’s warmup with its loose mix of crime and comedy, and career-best work from George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez (seriously, if you haven’t seen this film, do it soon). He followed that up with a tremendous run that included the critically adored crime thriller The Limey, the War on Drugs epic Traffic, and the character drama Erin Brockovich, which netted Julia Roberts her Oscar.
Soderbergh hasn’t confined himself to one type of film or even a logical career progression. When Ocean’s Eleven was a hit, he used that clout to make the ultra low-budget failure Full Frontal and the meditative remake of Solaris. While several of his films have been commercial successes, he seems just at home making experimental films that fly right under the wire, like High-Flying Bird, The Girlfriend Experience and Bubble, the last of which received mixed critical reception and was met by crickets from audiences but, in hindsight, used a distribution model that predicted day-and-date releases nearly 20 years before COVID forced it. The dude can’t even retire conventionally; after 2013’s Behind the Candelabra, which was supposedly his last film, he’s directed eight features so far and been involved with two television shows.
Soderbergh seems energized by working with actors and endlessly curious about all aspects of film, from cinematography to editing to distribution. He often serves as his own director of photography under the name Peter Andrews, as he did with Ocean’s Eleven, and has no qualms about whether his films are released in theaters or on streaming. He just seems to love making movies, which makes him one of the most fascinating voices in modern cinema, even when that work doesn’t hit.
And while he’s apparently having a great time, Ocean’s Eleven doesn’t skimp on technical expertise; seen now as part of the director’s long career, the jazzy soundtrack, zoom shots, use of digital cameras and unique shot compositions show that while it may have been a piffle, it wasn’t a digression. It’s just as much an auteur piece as Traffic, Contagion or Kimi.
It’s easy to see what attracted Soderbergh to this movie. The opportunity to collaborate with a cast at the top of its game and craft a variety of suspenseful and fun set pieces, all set to under the neon lights of Vegas and powered by a jazzy soundtrack had to be very appealing. And I suppose that Soderbergh wasn’t put off too much by the chance to make a big, down-the-middle mainstream hit (this was the eighth-highest grosser of 2001).
A perfect plan
There is a plot: Recently paroled thief Danny Ocean (Clooney) organizes a team of criminals to pull of a major job, robbing three casinos at once. All three are owned by Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), a notorious and dangerous Vegas businessman and, not for nothing, the new boyfriend of Danny’s ex-wife, Tess (Julia Roberts). And it’s amazing how much the plot does and doesn’t matter.
On the one hand, the plot is the thing in a heist movie. A good entry in the genre depends on us knowing the intricate details ahead of time — although a great caper, like this, will keep us in the dark as to crucial aspects in order to surprise us later — so we can hold our breath as it all goes wrong. And Soderbergh builds this story wonderfully. There’s a phenomenal “getting the band together” sequence as Ocean and right-hand man Rusty (Brad Pitt) assemble their team. The laying out of the heist, as we see each team member scope out the casino, do the groundwork and prepare for the big night, is often very funny. And when the pieces are in place, the film’s final hour is a mixture of breath-holding tension and big laughs as the scheme encounters a variety of setbacks, reversals and changes of plan that, of course, are more often than not revealed to have been part of the plan the entire time.
But while the plot is meticulous, there’s also a sense in which it’s beside the point. Because Ocean’s Eleven is all vibe. The jazz soundtrack composed by David Holmes isn’t inessential; it’s the film’s entire reason for being, As critic Jeffrey Overstreet says in his Letterboxed review:
“Ocean's 11 is all about the music; the dialogue, the lights, the colors, the costumes, the locations, they're all just extensions of the music, pregnant pauses in the jazz. It's an exercise in style, fully aware of its own absurdity. It's an invitation to a theme party, and the theme is gangsters, gamblers, and bank robbers. “
Overstreet’s description of this as a party is right on. This is a movie that is fully at play, with a cast that both feels like the members are not so much playing characters in several cases, most notably Clooney and Pitt, but heightened versions of their celebrity personas. And you can almost feel Soderbergh chuckling with every last-minute escape or unexpected plot turn, even if they make no sense. The crew’s decision to remove Danny from the caper when they find out he’s been trailing after Tess, only to have him reappear later to help Linus (Matt Damon) and reveal that this has all, of course, been part of the plan all along has no rationale behind it. But it’s perfectly in line with the jocular vibe of the movie to have Danny withhold something from Linus just to test his loyalty, just as we realize that the only reason the script withholds it from us to is to create suspense as to when Danny will jump back in the story.
Some of the set pieces are exquisitely suspenseful, such as when Chinese acrobat Yen (Shaobo Quin) has to make an impossible flip to avoid setting off a sensor, or anytime anxiety-prone tech genius Livingston (Eddie Jemison) has to play a role. And yet, the suspense is woven through such a breezy, jazzy vibe that it never becomes too much. Watching Ocean’s Eleven, where people rarely break a sweat, you quickly realize you’re not watching to see if Danny and his crew will pull it off, but how.
But of course, we know how: They’re professionals.
The crew
Looking back at Ocean’s Eleven, I find myself surprised that, despite the film’s massive cast and their subsequent fame, very few of them have jumped into comic book movies. Don Cheadle, of course, is the main exception, having played War Machine since Iron Man 2, but aside from some memorable and brief cameos from Matt Damon and Brad Pitt (the latter literally a split-second cameo in Deadpool 2), none of the boys have seem bit by the Marvel bug.
And I think it’s obvious why: This is the much better deal.
One of the appeals to the MCU is the light-hearted bantering between the cast. A crucial part of creating a believable cinematic universe is setting the impression that these characters enjoy hanging out together and busting each other’s chops and, to its credit, it often works. But it seems like it might be more enjoyable to get to hang out in Vegas, avoid the greenscreen and tights, and sip martinis while playing cops and robbers.
Because just as much as you can nearly hear Soderbergh chuckling behind the camera, the cast looks to be having a blast sending up their personas and hanging out under the neon lights. Aside from Jemison, whose character is perpetually nervous by design, and Damon, playing a character whose insecurity is part of the joke, everyone looks cool and relaxed the entire time, and if they don’t have a drink in their hand, you can surely bet one is on their mind. But again, just as Soderbergh doesn’t use this as an excuse to coast, it doesn’t mean the actors didn’t come to play.
Few people come off as effortlessly cool and charming on screen as George Clooney, and the entire character of Danny Ocean depends on that. He seems relaxed even when in prison, a pithy retort always at the ready. He’s charming and confident, and he knows it, and much of the film’s vibe stems from the way Danny glides through the film, constantly smirking like he’s getting away with something because, of course, he’s getting away with something.
But he’s matched by the rest of the ensemble. Pitt’s Rusty looks perpetually amused, and I love how Pitt and Soderbergh steer right into the joke of the actor always having food in his hands. Damon would have been the youngest member of the core ensemble here, and given that he’s now been a capable and respected leading man for two decades, it’s fun to watch him play the new kid on the block here.
Everyone gets a moment to shine, whether it’s Elliott Gould as the gaudy financier and casino owner with his own vendetta against Benedict, or Don Cheadle’s explosive expert Basher sporting a Cockney accent for no reason other than it’s a delight to hear. I love the constant squabbles between Scott Caan and Casey Affleck’s “Mormon twins” and Carl Reiner gets a late-period spotlight as the group’s actor. I could watch the late, great Bernie Mac threaten a car salesman while talking about moisturizer all day. And while Garcia’s not a member of the crew, he’s fearsome enough that there’s a reason why he was asked to come back for the sequels.
Watching them all assemble to play different roles and pull off the heist, I’m reminded that one of the reasons Hollywood loves a heist film so much might be because it’s an allegory for making a movie. There’s an overall scheme that requires several people to play a variety of roles, with a meticulous planner at the center of it all and millions of dollars on the table. I don’t find it hard to believe that that could be a big part of what attracted Soderbergh to the film.
If there’s one thing that doesn’t quite work, it’s the love story between Danny and Tess. Clooney and Roberts play their parts right, and Ted Griffin’s screenplay gives them one scene to tear into some really great banter. But I never really buy that there’s much spark there, or that Tess could be wooed away again by Danny pulling off another heist. But it doesn’t really matter; the love story is surface level in a film that’s all surface level, and it doesn’t have to be Titanic; it just a has to provide enough romanticism for the film to work.
And it does. I constantly thought back to Singin’ in the Rain when watching this, a movie that was a beast to film and yet feels incredibly light on its feet. Ocean’s Eleven is NOT Singin’ in the Rain, but it is a movie in which you can see the hard work put into making all this work while still feeling effervescent every step of the way. It feels effortlessly fun and engaging, and that theme party vibe that Overstreet talks about earlier helps us waive away any ickyness we might feel about cheering on criminals.
Ocean’s Eleven was a big success, pulling in $187 million at the domestic box office. It was a gamble that paid off, and the most foolish thing to do would seem to come back to the table and press their luck with a sequel. But three years later, Soderbergh got the team back to together. Does it work? We’ll talk Ocean’s Twelve next week.