Ocean's 11 - 01/05/02

Traffic, King of the Hill, Out of Site, Erin Brockovich and my second favorite film of 1999, The Limey. (Galaxy Quest was my favorite of the year).

Soderbergh and George Clooney worked so well together after Out of Site, that they started their own production company together, called Section Eight Ltd..

Section Eight will be handling their next project, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, along with (I believe) Full Frontal, the semi-sequel to Sex, Lies and Videotape. The production company is also handling Christopher Nolan's next film Insomnia, along with Far From Heaven and Welcome to Collinwood. All of the films have 2002 due dates.

Now, on to the movie.

Ocean's 11 is a remake of the 1960 film of the same name, starring the Rat Pack. Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford. Angie Dickinson, Richard Conte and Cesar Romero rounded off the cast.

It was an excuse film, common in the day, strictly so the Rat Pack could make a film together. This happened more than once.

The remake was made for similar reasons. To join a stellar cast of actors and actresses together, in one film. It's been happening more and more lately, because the money actors have been making, off of one film (read The Perfect Storm, Fight Club, Notting Hill, Bagger Vance)... is enough to sustain them for a long, long time. Projects like this provide a fun atmosphere, along with pleasing an enormous fan base. So, you work with high profile stars, you make some money, you get people interested in you... people who weren't so interested before, maybe.

Re-makes are hard to critique, especially one that is re-inventing itself, forty years later. But, let's start with the writers.

Originally taken from the story of George Clayton Johnson (who wrote Twilight Zone, Star Trek and Kung Fu episodes, along with the novel Logan's Run) and Jack Golden Russell (who did not go on to write anything more), and from the original screenplay by Harry Brown (Sands of Iwo Jima, El Dorado) and Charles Lederer (His Girl Friday, Kiss of Death, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Mutiny on the Bounty)... Ted Griffin (Ravenous, Best Laid Plans) had his work cut out for him.

Keep in mind that in a remake, everything changes. Society, culture, beliefs, technology, money, security, jail, the police. There isn't a thing that hasn't changed since 1960, so Griffin had to update and research a lot to make this film work.

I was impressed with the writing, as a whole. I have not seen the original. I have read bad reviews of the film and only have so much time to waste on bad movies... so I don't have much to compare it to. Suffice it to say, the story flowed, with good dialog and characters... but the film was so neat and tidy that I thought a lot of it was just plain silly.

Perfect plans are fine. The was beyond perfect. This was like Danny Ocean (Clooney) was The Watcher from Marvel comics, or perhaps the physical manifestation of Destiny, and he was able to see into the future. It was just too perfect. And in the end, that got annoying.

Acting.

Well, this film has incredible actors. It's one of the draws of the movie. It's interesting to see what chemistry will work, and where.

Clooney is an excellent actor. I enjoyed him in his last film, O' Brother Where Art Thou? (though I didn't enjoy the film), and I've been a fan of his since ER. He was good in this movie, but at times the acting came off wooden. Still, it didn't bother me.

Brad Pitt. I can't say enough about the choices he's made over the last four years. His work with David Fincher has been astounding. Snatch was great. I did not see The Mexican or Spy Game... but I've always been impressed with his work.

Andy Garcia. Where the hell did he go? He's done a lot of work over the past ten years, but nothing I would call incredible. His last good movie, in my eyes, was Black Rain, in 1989. He was good in this role, but I think he's on his way to being type cast.

Julia Roberts. I hate to say it, but she was more of a tool in this role than anything else. Anyone could have played that role... she worked well with Soderbergh on Brockovich, so I'm sure she joined up to work with him again... she was essentially another name to add to the cast to put people in the seats. Her role was minimal.

Elliot Gould, Carl Reiner, Scott Caan, Bernie Mac, Casey Affleck, Don Cheadle... all of them brought their wonderful personalities to the film, making each of their characters work very well.

Soderbergh was, again, the cinematographer of his own film (as Peter Andrews). He did this same thing on Traffic, which I thought was much more of an artistic shoot. This was very straight forward, with good lighting and good technique.

All in all, a decent movie. It won't win any awards, that kind of thing... but if you go into it knowing what the project was about... getting a great cast together to shoot a fun movie, you'll enjoy it that much more.