How can a movie with a perfect cast, director and script feel like a Dentist’s Lobby?

Well, I have a couple of ideas about it, and unfortunately that’s how I feel about Steven Soderbergh’s OCEAN’S ELEVEN.

I’ve been excited about this movie from the second it left Brett Ratner’s hands and fell into Soderbergh and Clooney’s mitts. However, right now… I’m seriously reconsidering that thought. At least when Ratner was in charge of the project the script still had a bite.

You see, originally OCEAN’S ELEVEN was to be a fight between vintage Vegas and the ‘family-friendly’ Vegas of today. There were great scenes of dialogue ripping into the Disneylandification of what was once a proper Adult Babylon. The script had an attitude. A vibrancy. And reading it with the thought of Soderbergh and the cast he had. Dear Lord, that was excitement.

Now it isn’t that the film is terrible, it isn’t. It just isn’t alive. There is no beat, no heart… The film just felt flaccid and limp. Like a charismatic yawn.

The film didn’t feel like it was VEGAS at all. No sense of it. Every actor in the film felt like they were playing COOL. This is agonizing for me, because typically… Soderbergh embodies vitality and life in film. His taste in visual flair has always been exquisite. And his ability to match that with the perfect musical accompaniment to bring it to life, where it would live in your skull well after the film ended.

Right now as I write this, I’m watching THE LIMEY, earlier today I was watching OUT OF SIGHT. Both of these films have a sense of urgency and inevitability. You could feel forward momentum. That there was a sense of chaos that could throw the characters for a loop that would just scare the bejeesus out of them. More than anything you got the feeling that these mortals were not sure of the next move, and when that move came… They had to deal with it or die.

OCEAN’S ELEVEN is a straight line. No hazardous curves, no blind spots. The film has no real conflict. There are no threats or even real dangers. There are isolated moments of tension, nothing more.

The film is competent, but that is not entirely satisfying. Not when you have this cast, this director and the script they had. This should have been something more than a stroll.

Now I understand… Danny Ocean is in control. He’s the Mack Daddy of controlled coolness. In a hail of birdshit, he’s splatter-free. Alright, gotcha. Fine, good, I’ll give ya that. The Fonz in finer suits. George Clooney plays this to the ‘T’. Nails it.

Now answer me this, why then is every other character in the film playing a slight variation on Danny Ocean?

I mean, generally when you’re creating a heist sort of situation, you would have something along the way go wrong. Here, everything that goes wrong is actually right and therefore according to plan, meaning… It is all handled without so much as a tiny bit of trouble.

Now I’m not going to come in here and bring up Sinatra’s OCEAN’S ELEVEN as some sort of holy cow on some incense burning altar of worship. That wasn’t a very good movie, but it did have a sense of chaos to it. I did feel things could go wrong, if only because of the glassy eyes and the swinging beat that the film had. It might not have been a great film, but it was alive.

No, instead, I’m going to bring up the best version of the Rob A Las Vegas Casino film. One that I would think worthy of Steven Soderbergh… MACHINE GUN McCAIN.

MACHINE GUN McCAIN was the John Cassavetes heist flick set in and around Vegas. It was an Italian Crime film (Soooooo deserving of a great DVD job) where Cassavetes gets out of jail at the beginning, is set to work to plan knocking off a casino in Vegas. Hooks up with a pretty lap warmer played by the scrumdiddlyumptious Britt Ekland. Cassavetes’ old lady was stunningly played by Gena Rowlands, and Peter Falk played the Crime boss that once set things in motion, really wants to call it quits.

McCain didn’t over-plan his heist. As a result there are all kinds of things that can go wrong. Hell, even when you get away with it all, the mob, the mafia, the big bad guys that control the dice and the distribution of the cards… They got your number, and no matter where you go… they collect.

Unfortunately, I can’t recommend that you go down to your local video store to pick this up instead, because… Well, unfortunately it isn’t there for you. It is not on video or DVD. Trust me when I say that this is the vastly superior film.

OCEAN’S ELEVEN was an exercise, a warm up and a real waste of time and talent. I’m not sure how this script was transformed into a ‘family friendly’ film. A movie with no balls, no real machismo, no emotion and absolutely the most fake feeling of cool by way of underplaying that I’ve seen in quite some time.

I’m very depressed about this. When I purchased my tickets, I was walking in there to see a Steven Soderbergh film, I walked out not knowing who built this pre-fab fluff, but I want to wish he had nothing to do with it.

Completely lifeless, amusing in spots, but ultimately depressing.

OK... ya want more? Here we go...

Andy Garcia - Completely lifeless. Wandering from scene to scene as if in a daze. We're told that he's some ultimate badass. We're told what he did to somebody else. We're told to not mess with him. OK.. so they mess with him and... let's see, he stands in vault looking extremely confused and pissed? He delivers an, 'Ewwwww, I'm going to get you pesky kids' speech, then sends 5 cars with guys with guns after the robot van and that's how he's going to fuck with you? I mean, someone that has such a kept routine would instantly be thinking about all the new variables that came into his life that day. The old fart with the jewels. The rookie Nevada Gaming Commission guy. The dealer he had to dismiss. The old fart in the control room that had a fake heart attack, but that didn't get admitted to a real hospital. He'd start taking stills of these people from the video. He'd start distributing their faces to his 'associates' he'd track them down.... their list of associates. He would never have let Danny Ocean go... He's an ultimate badass, and 'no one' knows he's in the room with no cameras. He'd use electricity, a blow torch, he'd rip the fucking fingernails out of Mr Suave's fingertips. "You can go Mr Ocean?" WHAT THE FUCK? Bullshit, lame and crap!

Brad Pitt - Sedate, drugged and lifeless. Other than one goofy entrance as a doctor, his character is dead. The one almost great scene was the card game with him and Clooney. But he starts the film bored and ends the film bored.

Matt Damon - Other than a constant look of confusion, what the hell does he do? He's like a lost dumb puppy in the film. Oh, by the way... What was the reasoning behind having him believe Clooney was out? Was there a payoff to that? Was it really necessary to confuse an already confused character?

Don Cheadle - Ok, what's up with the accent, and which movie does it belong in? He's given Jack and Shit to work with in this movie. His most memorable moment is guarding his nutsac from an EMP pulse. This is the actor that stole OUT OF SIGHT, that was robbed of an Academy Award for DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS and was so great in TRAFFIC. Apparently he wanted to be in a Guy Ritchie movie.

Julia Roberts - Neither sexy nor alluring. She is a mannequin in the movie. They put clothes on her, and she walks from one side of the screen to the other. She is bored throughout.

Elliot Gould - He's a circus clown. This isn't a tough as nails Casino Owner from the classic era of Vegas, this is Jon Peters meets Liberace. He's Waldo in the film. Just a dweeb in funny clothes that stands out, only because he doesn't fit in.

Casey Affleck and Scott Caan - I prefered these characters when they made SLAP SHOT.

Ok.... Now let's sort one thing out right now. I love the above list of actors. As the saying goes, BIG FAN. But they just aren't doing anything here. This movie is about the plan, not about them. This is a movie about plot machinations not character, and as most writers and critics will tell you, CHARACTERS make you care about PLOT, and in this case, I could just give to shakes of a cock about the plot of this film.

The Music for the film. Ho-Hum. HO-HUM? From the guy that put together the music behind OUT OF SIGHT and THE LIMEY? Musically this film is duller than a metronome.

Soderbergh's direction? Given there was only tension twice in the film. Once when the Chinese Gymnast gets his hand caught in the safe mechanism. And the other when the big bald guy comes in the room to beat the shit out of Clooney. I'd say in an action adventure heist film... that it ends up failing pretty miserably. ESPECIALLY when you disable the explosives by the convenient 'battery check' device. And you disable the giant bald guy by making him an old buddy of Clooney's. Every single time where tension was supposed to be raised, it was immediately disabled to keep a status quo in emotional involvement.

Blowing the Gymnast's arm off wasn't an option. Having Clooney take the beating of all beatings was never an option. Blowing all the lights in Vegas at night.... Dealing with the amazingly wonderful chaos that would ensue... not an option.

Rent TOPKAPI.... Go see Mamet's THE HEIST. Watch GUNS OF NAVARONE. This movie ceased to just be a heist movie and became GUYS ON A MISSION flick.

As such, 'just being cool' ain't enough!

LAST ADDED PART!

I don't hate the film, the movie is merely adequate, passable, average... All words dodging around saying MEDIOCRE. If this was a Joel Schumacher film, I'd say it was quite good. For Steven Soderbergh, who has never made a movie that I didn't adore. Fun? 11 guys robbing a Casino while having no problems doing it is FUN? I thought that was called THE NEWTON BOYS and was considered by almost everyone out there as tedium.

Perhaps I went in with expectations set too high. Perhaps I expected a movie with a razor's edge of wit, with our finest high budget talented actors riffing off one another and being charismatic as hell. Perhaps I wanted to move to the edge of my seat a couple of times. Maybe I wanted to grip the arms of my chair a tad. Feel my heart beat race a bit. Maybe, just maybe I wanted to see a little excitement. I do feel this was a better film than the original, but that wasn't going to be hard. All that would require is a single actor to be on his mark, and Carl Reiner was definitely on his best game.

As someone down below states that Soderbergh has stated, is that this was a movie with nothing on its mind. Nothing on its mind. That's a long way around saying the movie was BORING. However, if you loved it... Great, wonderful, wish I were you. So I guess if you want to see an 'ok' movie or perhaps Soderbergh's worst film (which is still better than about 70% of the other director's best films) then check this out. Maybe with diminished expectations it'll play great. I went in expecting a GREAT POPCORN HEIST ADVENTURE MOVIE, came out with an OK flick. A moderately successful effort. Yippee