Ocean’s Eleven (2001)

First off, I’d like to personally thank Zoe from The Sporadic Chronicles of a Beginning Blogger for inspiring me to watch all 4 “Ocean” movies.  Her concise reviews made me want to revisit this series myself.  If you don’t already follow her blog, I suggest you get over there right now (when u finish here 🙂 obviously) to check it out!  Thanks Zoe!

“The moment you set foot on that casino floor, they’ll be watching you like hawks. Hawks with video cameras.” – Livingston

Number of Times Seen – 3 times (9 Jan 2002, Dec 2004 and 4 Feb 2014)

Brief Synopsis – A recently released convict puts a team together to pull off the largest robbery ever of a Las Vegas casino.

My Take on it – George Clooney and pals were super hot in 2001, so they decided to take a classic heist movie, modernize it and make a better movie than Sinatra and his gang were able to do 40 years prior.

They definitely succeeded!

This movie takes the basic plot from the original and propel it so high into the atmosphere that they were able to accomplish something that very few other re-makes succeed in doing and that is making the movie memorable to modern audiences.

Director Steven Soderbergh and Clooney were able to sign up so many big names that there were lots of discussions (ok, negotiations) about billing that even convinced one actor to forego billing if he couldn’t be above the title.

This amazing cast includes – Clooney, Brad Pitt. Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle (the aforementioned actor who went uncredited), Elliott Gould, Bernie Mac, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, Carl Reiner and Andy Garcia.

It is usually quite hard to have such a large cast and use all of the actors properly, but this movie is built right and does it.

The heist itself is very complicated, but Soderbergh uses visual techniques to make us understand what is going on at all times.

The only slight drawback here is since there are so many characters, their development isn’t so good and some aspects of their personalities are lost along the way.

Bottom Line – Extremely fun movie, great cast and IMHO one of the best remakes ever made. Recommended!

Rating – Globe Worthy

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