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Ocean's Eleven (Widescreen Edition) Customer Reviews (4 - 6 of 80 Reviews)

Over-hyped excuse to bill big-name actors
This film is a perfect example of how straight action and big-name stars cannot replace the necessity of well written drama.

I will not give away the plot -- although that is admittedly hard to do since there is so little of it. Basically Clooney's character Mr. Ocean, a career burgler, is released from prison with a plan to rob the vault of a Las Vegas casino. So he recruits 11 men, each with a talent to add to the operation. This is where the trouble begins. The viewer is given no reason at all why he should sympathize with any of these characters. There is almost no introduction to many of them, and barely even a mention of their names. Literally half an hour into the film "the eleven" are assembled and they're already robbing the casino. How's that for plot development? And that's basically it ladies and gentlemen: go to Vegas, rob casino, go home, movie over. Some of the "good guys" are even outright repellant. Our would-be heros' enterprise is bankrolled by some greasy Hollywood tycoon. Am I supposed to like this fat weasel?

The only reason we are given to sympathize at all with at least Mr. Ocean, is that the guy he's robbing, the casion owner, is a really bad guy. Supposedly he has people killed 'n stuff. (This actor played a bad guy in Godfather Part 3). But we never see any real evil deeds. In fact, he just seems like a handsome, polite, very prosperous businessman. He manages to raise his voice for just one line in the entire film. Mr. Ocean on the other hand, and his cohorts, are career criminals. But the guy they're robbing is an even greater criminal, you see. So that makes it OK. And really, if you were being robbed, wouldn't you want to be robbed by George Clooney and Brad Pitt? They're such nice guys. That makes getting robbed fun. Just a couple of nice guys stealing from another nice guy. How thrilling.

This entire film is a rushed series of action sequences punctuated by a few soap opera moments with Julia Roberts. There are a few minor things going on in the backgroung, like a boxing match, which are essentially irrelevent. Throughout there seems to be vital information missing (like say, a plot). Soderbergh simply did a terrible job of making me care what happens to Clooney and Roberts.

This film is also horribly cut. Several times what seemed like vital plot details were intoduced, and then completely forgotten about. Take the scene where Pitt and a buddy are casing out the joint and the casino's owner makes an appearence. The folder he has just been handed, explains Pitt, contains secret security codes. You would think that would be something important right? You would think they will need to get those codes. Well, wrong. In fact you won't hear or see a single thing more about them for the rest of the movie. They introduce what seems to be an important detail and then totally abandon it without any development. And that happens all the time in this movie.

In fact Mr. Ocean's team gets down the secure elevator shaft and into the vault with only minor difficulties. (And boy, they started repelling down that shaft quick, didn't they? You didn't even know they were robbing the place yet. Wow, these guys are good. Or maybe Steven Soderbergh is as over-rated as his film.) They make it look easier than breaking into the safe at 7-eleven. This, after Mr. Ocean briefed his crew at the beginning on the nearly impregnable security measures the vault was supposed to have.

One would hope this film would at least end strong. But Soderburgh makes the final scene open ended in such a way as to leave the audience confused and disappointed. We are left wondering whether the "eleven" actually got away with their caper...or worse. What a way to completely overturn the mood of a movie that at least had the merit of being light-hearted. The writer of the screenplay even said as much in the audio commentary to the DVD! (As did the actors in their commentary.)Probably the best moment on this DVD is hearing the screenwriter tell Soderbergh to his face that he screwed up the ending.

I am loath to give either 1 or 5 stars, since hardly anything is absolutely good or bad, but this film comes very close to 1 star. This is your standard artistically worthless Hollywood product. It is big on budget, big on bling, and low on story. I suppose if you just feel like wasting some time, this is as good a way to do it as any. Personally I would rather have a story with more substance.

(:D)....(:D)....(;D)


I usually don't like remakes but this one is great! My family and I watched both the original and the new version and agreed that this will become part of our collection.
You can just watch it again and again and it is like watching it for the first time. All-Star cast with a far-fetched storyline, but it just sucks you right into the plot and you get wrapped up in the action

Good movie
The action in this movie is amazing. The idea behind the movie is great. Actors are great. This movie is great as a date movie.

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