Ocean's Eleven

Rarely indeed does one come upon a film so cleverly constructed, so impeccably delivered, and so immensely entertaining as "Ocean's Eleven." This film generated a rare amount of hype due to its eminent personnel: much-laureled director Steven Soderbergh, who had two films nominated for Best Picture Academy Awards last year, and a constellation of Hollywood's brightest stars including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia and (as the end credits put it) "introducing Julia Roberts."

It sounds too good to be true; it's only human nature to suspect that there's something less than a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But there it is, a wonder in celluloid, and all it falls to the critic to do is not to assign credits and demerits but to explain why this movie is so damn good.

We'll begin with Ted Griffin's script, which started the ball rolling by captivating Soderbergh. Griffin knew he had a difficult task before him: update the 1960 Rat Pack jaunt of the same name, which like the present movie deals with eleven crooks robbing three casinos in one night under the direction of con artiste extraordinare Danny Ocean, so that said heists could conceivably take place in our time - without losing the effortless cool of the earlier film in the process.

Fortunately, Griffin is more than up to the task. He constructs a marvelously complex plot which yet never strays too far from the heist at hand, and adds just the right amount of foreshadowing to keep us guessing, but guessing incorrectly. More impressively and importantly, he manages to carve out small but significant spaces in the script for all the actors to sharply define their characters: white-hot charm from Clooney and Pitt, bitter verbal barbs from Roberts, bridling at perceived racism for Bernie Mac, and Cockney rhyming slang for Don Cheadle (really). Though some characters, of course, are more equal than others, you never feel as if anyone has been forgotten.

Such a script requires a truly skilled director to do it justice. Soderbergh is enormously accomplished, but he has never directed a film requiring stunts and explosions and climbing wires and such before; he said upon making his decision, "I want to make this movie because I can't wait to see it," while acknowleding that he would have to learn a new cinematic grammar. This he does spectacularly well.

Soderbergh employs no camera filters for this one, and he certainly doesn't try to ape the kineticism of (say) John Woo. Instead, he conceals his art to such an extent that one leaves unsure of what Soderbergh did but amazed at how he did it. Normally at one point or another in a film like this, something spoils the fun. It could be a careless, uninformative camera angle, an unintended tonal shift, a plot lull, a misguided effect, a confusing crosscut - one of a million things. Soderbergh's skill is such that nothing like this ever happens. It sounds simple, but it's almost without precedent.

Furthermore, if you take time to pay attention to what Soderbergh has done, you'll marvel at his ability to show luxury without overemphasizing it, his attention to subtle details like the perfect camera angle on Roberts during a two-second shot in an elevator, and especially his ability to turn on the camera and sit back as his performers make some excitement.

And the brightest stars do indeed shine. However, without meaning any disrespect to Messrs. Clooney, Damon, Pitt, and Garcia and Madame Roberts, describing exactly how they shine in roles perfectly suited to their respective talents is almost superfluous. Even more satisfying, in such a context, are the turns taken by their less-famous counterparts. Everyone who pays attention knows that Bernie Mac is hilarious, but here he shows that he can be hilarious while playing a character who is not Bernie Mac.

Carl Reiner is both magesterial and affectingly unsure at the same time as master impersonator Saul Bloom, while Elliott Gould gives rich-man-about-town Reuben Tischikoff a memorably ingratiating whine and true old-school style. Even Shaobo Qin, hired solely on the basis of acrobatic ability, delivers a characterful performance despite the handicap of not speaking English, except for a few world-famous words.

Make no mistake: Unlike Soderbergh's previous opuses, "Erin Brockovich" and "Traffic," this movie does not have a social agenda. The dilemmas its characters face do not resonate in real life. The technique is restrained both for Soderbergh and for a crime flick. There's nothing in it that weighs you down as you exit the theater. Precisely the opposite: The buoyance of the film lifts you up, and you leave exhilirated, happy to have been at the mercy of a work of art so keen on entertaining you. Soderbergh couldn't wait to see it, and you shouldn't either.

OTHER THINGS ABOUT THIS FILM THAT DIDN'T FIT IN THE REVIEW

1. Lennox Lewis and Dmitri Kluvischenko play themselves in the title fight that takes place on the night the casinos are to be robbed. I have decided to hate Lennox Lewis because he beat Hasim Rahman, who is from Baltimore, which is a hell of a lot closer to where I live than England, where Lewis hails from. So when he came on screen at the MPAA screening, I said "Screw you!" under my breath. Someone turned around to give me a shush look. But I stand by my calumny.
2. Soderbergh or someone selected the awe-inspiring song "The PJs" by Handsome Boy Modeling School featuring Del the Funkee Homosapien and Dave from De La Soul to serve as background music at a strip club. This is just about the worst background music for a strip club I could think of - it's too positive, too roilingly driving (and Del's rap is way too sarcastic) to be useful for the gyrating women and their drooling customers. Nevertheless, I nodded my head hard when I heard that song. I don't think anyone turned around to give me a stop-nodding-your-head-so-hard look, although I don't think I would have seen such a look, since I was nodding my head so hard. As a matter of fact, I think I'll go put that song on right now. Aaaaah, that's the stuff. "I ain't even gonna finish this song/It's too long/I'm'a watch Cops in my Lay-Z-Boy in my thong." Classic.
3. Don Cheadle, as an insane Cockney bomber, sounds and acts *exactly* like the real insane Cockney actor Lennie James, who I saw in September in a movie called "Lucky Break." Then they told me the release date had been pushed back to 2002. James is just hilarious in that movie, even though the movie itself has some problems. If you like Cheadle in here, go have a look at the real British deal when that film comes out.

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