***The Granddaddy Film Of Going Where The Dough Is- George Clooney’s Ocean’s 11

 

DVD Review

From The Pen Of  Frank Jackman

Ocean’s 11, starring George Clooney, Brad Pitts, Eliot Gould, and a bunch of other guys, 2001

Recently in reviewing George Clooney’s Ocean 13 I made the following comment (Yeah, I know I am a little off on the chronology of the series but viewing that one go me back to watching the long gone granddaddy of stick-ups, modern version, unlike the shoot-em-up cowboys and the rat-tit-tat-tat gangster films of the 1930s and 1940s):  

“Everybody likes to see a bad guy get his comeuppance. Nobody likes to see a guy screw his partner (not in the old days anyway maybe now things are different in the raw dog-eat-dog world). Everybody likes to see a bad guy from Vegas get his comeuppance in duplicate and that is the premise behind Danny Ocean’s action in this third of the modern Ocean series (the old Frank Sinatra-led pack in the 1960s or so being the “classic”). Danny (played by George Clooney) and Rusty (played by Brad Pitts) are once again called to right some Vegas wrongs in the film under review, Ocean’s 13.”           

And not so strangely since nothing succeeds in Hollywood like success the plot-line for grandpa was just as simple, and similar- Danny Ocean (played by, ah, George Clooney), a beguiling ex-con who had been put always for being in the wrong place at the wrong time had plenty of time in stir to think up the heist to end all heists- the big enchilada- the trifecta-three big hotel casinos all in Vegas (forget that Las Vegas gag by now for we are all honorary citizens having now waded through two of these films).  The take- about 150 million, nothing to sneeze at even today, if things go right and even I am in on this one if that is the pay-out. All owned by a bad guy, Terry (played by Andy Garcia), the guy who stole Danny’s wife away (played by Julia Roberts) while he was in stir, and who has many enemies, many guys glad to take him down about seven steps, maybe more.      

Danny and the guys go about their business of doing this deed using all the high tech skills available to the motley crew of expert do-gooders. See, what they do is draw all the resources from the top to bottom by hook or by crook, including a raid on a a campus power source, to grab the money. And they would have made as the old master burglary Willie Sutton proud. So between the individual hi-jinx necessary to pull the plot off and Danny’s thoughtful plan to gain revenge Brother Terry has egg on his face, no question. Danny though just keeps trucking on in the sultry Vegas night (with that fickle leggy ex-wife so who needs dough). Yes, as easy as these guys made it look I am in if they ever need a guy when they make an Ocean’s 14.