Ocean's Eleven (2001 film)
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| Ocean's Eleven | |
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| Directed by | Steven Soderbergh |
| Produced by | Jerry Weintraub |
| Written by | George C. Johnson Jack G. Russell Harry Brown Charles Lederer Scott Corwon Ted Griffin |
| Starring | George Clooney Brad Pitt Matt Damon Andy Garcia Julia Roberts |
| Music by | David Holmes |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | December 5, 2001 |
| Running time | 116 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $85,000,000 |
| Followed by | Ocean's Twelve |
| IMDb profile | |
Ocean's Eleven is a 2001 remake of the 1960 Rat Pack caper film Ocean's Eleven. The 2001 movie was directed by Steven Soderbergh and starred George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Elliott Gould, Casey Affleck, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, Andy Garcia, and Julia Roberts. The film was generally considered to be a success with both the box office and critics. In 2004, Soderbergh directed an original sequel, Ocean's Twelve, with Ocean's Thirteen following in 2007.
Tagline: Are you in or out?
Contents |
[edit] Cast
- George Clooney as Daniel "Danny" Ocean - The planner
- Brad Pitt as Rusty Ryan - The facilitator
- Matt Damon as Linus Caldwell - The pickpocket
- Andy Garcia as Terry Benedict - The mark
- Julia Roberts as Tess Ocean - The ex-wife
- Casey Affleck as Virgil Malloy - The driver
- Scott Caan as Turk Malloy - The other driver
- Shaobo Qin as Yen - The greaseman
- Bernie Mac as Frank Catton - The plant
- Carl Reiner as Saul Bloom - The flimflam
- Eddie Jemison as Livingston Dell - The electronics
- Elliott Gould as Reuben Tishkoff - The backer
- Don Cheadle as Basher Tarr (uncredited) - The munitions
[edit] Plot
Daniel Ocean (Clooney) recruits a team of specialized 'heist men' to rob three Las Vegas casinos: Bellagio, The Mirage and the MGM Grand, all of which store their money in a central, high-tech bank vault beneath the Bellagio. The man who owns these casinos, Terry Benedict (Garcia), is the lover of Danny Ocean's former wife, Tess (Roberts). As the plot unfolds it become apparent that part of the 'sting' is to trip up Benedict with regard to Tess, so that she'll come running back to Danny. With financing and backing from a wealthy ex-casino owner (who was bitter at the way he was bought out by Benedict), the robbers foil the elaborate security mechanisms to get to the vault.
Unlike the original film, in which the crew is made of 82nd Airborne veteran 'undetectable' amateurs, this crew is composed of underworld professionals; two with recent prison records which are utilized to the crew's advantage. It's much more similar to The Sting, than to the original Ocean's Eleven. (Some have also noted similarities to The Magnificent Seven, with Clooney and Pitt resembling Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen assembling their team.)
The elaborate sting involves a number of interlocked distractions which must be coordinated precisely. Benedict is the object of the 'sting', as well as the millions in the vault. Basher (Cheadle), is the explosives man whose job it is to shut off the power to the city. The purpose of that, however, is ultimately to allow two of the crew to rappel down an elevator shaft, and also to cause some distraction for casino security and monitoring. This is accomplished by a debilitating "electromagnetic pulse" generated by Basher's "pinch", an elaborate fictional device with illuminated coils, which they steal at night from the fictitious California Institute of Advanced Science (apparently based at UC Irvine), with CIAS security guards just missing apprehending small-time crook Linus Caldwell (Damon). In addition to a brief city-wide power outage, they need certain access codes to get inside to the elevator. These are updated daily, and are carried on Benedict's person. Linus, a skilled pickpocket, is introduced to Benedict as a member of the Nevada Gaming Commission, tracking down a dealer who has a record. However, the dealer in fact is a plant, a member of the crew played by Bernie Mac. This enables Linus to get into the same room with Benedict when they question the dealer. This is also to extinguish any future suspicion of the disappearance of Mac's character from his work at the casino after the robbery. A staged scuffle is created, at which point Linus picks Benedict's pocket. Linus doubles back saying he forgot his pager, as Benedict hurries on to a boxing match where Tess waits for him.
A third element, another distraction, is created by Saul Bloom (Reiner) posing as a nebulous and shady Russian money man. He convinces Benedict to let him store some jewels in the deep vault, overnight. In the process of doing so, he stages a heart attack to distract the local guards from seeing Linus doubling back.
Another element is control of that very surveillance video. As Linus doubles back, while Saul stages the distraction, a third member cuts in with pre-shot video of empty hallways, and an empty elevator. Meanwhile, the security is worried about Saul, as Rusty dashes in with two paramedics, also members of the crew, who declare the man 'dead' in order to get him out of there.
Danny has joined Linus in the elevator shaft ready to rappel, and Rusty is wheeling away the 'dead' Saul. Both get on cellphones to call their control center - blackout the town.
Meanwhile, the last element is the 'greaseman', known by his circus act as "The Amazing Yen". A Chinese acrobat and contortionist, able to squeeze himself into tight spaces and leap around, he is concealed in a money cart, which is placed inside the vault. He exits the cart and jumps to shelving in the vault to avoid scanners that are knee or ankle high.
After the brief blackout, Danny and Linus find themselves looking out the elevator at a short corridor at two guards in front of the vault. They use some pop-up gas-releasing grenade device to disable both. Yen plants the charges (the fake jewels) onto the vault door. Ocean plants detonators outside. And the vault is blown. Meanwhile, surveillance shows something different (absolutely nothing wrong happening) than what is actually occurring inside the vault.
Finally, when ready, Rusty calls Benedict directly on a cellphone, which Danny secretly dropped into Tess's pocket. Rusty says Benedict is being robbed. The video feed suddenly changes. Benedict calls for a SWAT team, which arrives promptly and storms the place. Ultimately the crew still succeed in stealing the money - by virtue of the SWAT team being other team members in disguise.
Whether they get away from Benedict in the months and years afterward is the subject of the sequel, Ocean's Twelve.
[edit] Cons Described
In the beginning of the movie, when they begin to work on the plan for the casino heist, Rusty (Pitt) says to Danny (Clooney),
- "Off the top of my head, I'd say you're looking at a Boesky, a Jim Brown, a Miss Daisy, two Jethros and a Leon Spinks, not to mention the biggest Ella Fitzgerald ever!"
This list of cons was created by director Steven Soderburgh and a screenwriter that described the type of people and cons needed to knock over the three casinos.
- Boesky - a reference to Ivan Boesky, a big-time trader on Wall Street who got caught committing securities fraud. The con is about a wealthy bankroller who has insider information. Reuben Tishkoff.
- Jim Brown - the confrontation between Frank Catton and Linus Caldwell, staged to distract Terry Benedict so that Linus can lift the security codes to the vault. Named for the famous American football player Jim Brown.
- Miss Daisy - the SWAT vehicle used as the getaway car. From the movie title Driving Miss Daisy.
- Two Jethros - the Malloy brothers. "Hillbilly gear-head types" hired to take care of Miss Daisy, distraction purposes, and for general two-man work.
- Leon Spinks - the disruption of the boxing match. This refers to the surprise victory of Leon Spinks over Muhammad Ali.
- Ella Fitzgerald - the looped tape of the robbery that is played over Benedict's security system. A reference to a 1970s commercial for Memorex, in which a recording of Ella Fitzgerald's voice breaks a glass and the question is posed to the viewer: "Is it live or is it Memorex?"
[edit] Posters
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[edit] Trivia
- Despite playing a major role in the film, Don Cheadle's name is not listed in the credits. It is unknown why Cheadle chose not to be credited for this film but he is credited in the sequels Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen
- Brad Pitt is seen eating in almost every non-action scene he is present. Explained in the DVD Extras this was done in order to give the impression that Rusty is always busy and on the move and that the only time he can eat is whenever he gets the chance.
- The inspiration for the film (and the original) is believed to be the famous, highly-technical robbery of the Brink's Security building in Boston by a team of eleven, usually known as "the Brink's Job".
- Andy Garcia's character is partially based on Steve Wynn, the developer behind Bellagio, The Mirage and Wynn Las Vegas. One of Andy Garcia's lines reads, "If you should be picked up buying a $100,000 sports car in Newport Beach, I'm going to be supremely disappointed." This is a reference to the real-life 1994 kidnapping of Steve Wynn's daughter, Kevyn Wynn, where one of the kidnappers was caught in Newport Beach a week after the incident trying to buy a Ferrari with cash.
- Other than the lead character, none of the robbers in the remake share names with robbers in the original, although they do exhibit some of their personality quirks.
- The two fighters featured in the boxing match sequence are Wladimir Klitschko and Lennox Lewis.
- The password that Matt Damon's character enters on the elevator is 1138, a reference to THX 1138 by George Lucas.
- Scott Caan and Casey Affleck's names are Virgil and Turk, which may show a connection to The Godfather, in which one of the villains goes by the name "Virgil 'The Turk' Solozzo".
- At one point, the actors considered for roles in the film included Mike Myers, Ewan McGregor, Sydney Pollack, Warren Beatty, Dennis Franz, Ralph Fiennes, and Michael Douglas, Mark Wahlberg, Danny Glover, Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson, Bruce Willis, and Alan Arkin.
- Five "teen idols" make cameos as themselves during the scene where Rusty teaches them how to play poker: Holly Marie Combs, Topher Grace, Joshua Jackson, Barry Watson, and Shane West.
- In the movie, a pinch is stolen, and used to disrupt power in Las Vegas. Real life pinches wouldn't produce the required EMF - the scriptwriter may have been thinking of an Explosively pumped flux compression generator.
- In the DVD commentary Steven Soderbergh and Ted Griffin acknowledge a certain plot hole: How did the crew get the flyers of the hookers in the vault in the first place?
- Steven Soderbergh also has a cameo in the movie, playing one of the bank robbers with Basher that the LVPD catch.
- Another plot hole noted by the actors in the commentary is that Ocean is heard speaking to the tough guy "Bruiser" played by Scott L. Schwartz in the room, as an accomplice, shortly after they are left alone, all the while outside the bodyguards stand. Yet the bodyguards were supposed to hear even the quiet, muffled cries of the torturer, faking Ocean's presence after Ocean has left through a vent in the ceiling.
- Siegfried and Roy have a cameo appearance in the movie.
- Henry Silva and Angie Dickinson appear in brief cameos during the boxing sequence in the film; Both were stars of the original.
- The song that plays as Danny is released from prison and continues to play over the main titles is titled "Rodney Yates" and is not featured on the soundtrack. It is however featured on David Holmes' (the score composer) 1997 album Let's Get Killed (which also featured the original version of "Gritty Shaker").
- The character Basher Tarr, which is played by Don Cheadle, plays a similar role in the remake that Sammy Davis Jr. played in the original. Incidentally, Cheadle played Davis in the 1998 HBO TV movie The Rat Pack.
[edit] External links
- Ocean's Eleven (2001 film) at Yahoo! Movies
- Ocean's Eleven Fan Page
- Ocean's Eleven at the Internet Movie Database
- Ocean's Eleven at Rotten Tomatoes
- Full script of 2001 re-make
| Films by Steven Soderbergh |
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sex, lies, and videotape (1989) | Kafka (1991) | King of the Hill (1993) | Underneath (1995) | Gray's Anatomy (1996) | Schizopolis (1996) | Out of Sight (1998) | The Limey (1999) | Erin Brockovich (2000) | Traffic (2000) | Ocean's Eleven (2001) | Full Frontal (2002) | Solaris (2002) | Eros (Equilibrium) (2004) | Ocean's Twelve (2004) | Bubble (2006) | The Good German (2006) | Guerrilla (2007) | Ocean's Thirteen (2007) |
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