Ocean's Eleven

Let’s get to some swingin’ previews, eh Sammy? HART’S WAR–So Bruce is back with an Oscar hope, huh? And this time, not only do we have to deal with Clooney’s (I think) upcoming version of Hogan’s Heroes, but we have to deal with Bruce doing a serious version of it.

Truth be told, this looks really good. It’s about a group of POW’s near the end of WWII who find a chance to help America find a munitions plant that everyone thinks is a shoe factory. When one of their men is accused of murder, Bruce and Colin Farrell (from Tigerland and American Outlaws) are going to try to defend him while using the trial as a way to attract attention to the plant.

Looks like Bruce is in top form here (even though he has hair again) and it could be a great movie. And director Gregory Hoblit (Frequency, Fallen and Primal Fear) hasn’t misstepped too many times lately, although Fallen was a bit of a letdown. I’ll be there for this one.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE–After Sept. 11, this flick was pushed back indefinitely because of the terrorism subject. That and the studio was finally realizing that Arnold Schwarzeneggar vehicles just aren’t worth it anymore.

Now I guess they figure that the American public is ready for a film about a man who is out to kill the terrorist who killed his family. They may be right. I can see an Americentric flick like this doing really well right now. And, with a great cast (John Leguizamo, John Turturro and Elias Koteas) and a solid director (Andrew Davis–The Fugitive) this could be what Arnie needs to get himself out of the doldrums of bad cinema. But Davis isn’t really a golden boy. He also did Chain Reaction, Steal Big, Steal Little and A Perfect Murder. And I really didn’t like Under Siege too much, either. (I seem to be one of the few, though.)

Well, either way, I always like Arnold no matter of his politics and I’ll give it a shot. It certainly looks better than End Of Days or The 6th Day. Can’t be much worse.

(For the record, I didn’t see 6th Day and I wasn’t the one who rented End Of Days, but I did think it was total crap.)

ORANGE COUNTY–MTV Pictures comes back with the story of a young man (Colin Hanks–Tom’s son) who has dreams of getting out of his little town in the titular county. He wants to be a writer (something his dad, John Lithgow, of course doesn’t understand) and put in a application to Stamford. When his records get screwed up with a loser’s records (by Lily Tomlin, no less…what the fuck is she doing here?) he has to go set the record straight. With the help of his loser brother (Jack Black, who may make me see this crap), he’s going to go see the dean (Harold Ramis).

This movie has a great cast for such a stupid piece of tripe. Among the other small roles are Chevy Chase, Catherine O’Hara, Ben Stiller and Kevin Kline. How the hell they got these people together I’ll never know, but I want their casting agent.

It looks like it could be fun in that Dead Man On Campus way and, as shitty as that one was, it was still pretty funny at times. I might give it a shot at matinee prices.

And now for the main event! Let’s head down to Vegas.

Ocean’s Eleven is, of course, the story of a boy who meets his Caribbean queen in a dream. When he wakes up, he goes outside to find her in his car.

And, since I can’t think of any more Billy Ocean songs I’m going to end that lame-ass joke right now.

Back in the late 50′s Frank Sinatra got an idea. He and his crew, The Rat Pack or, as they liked to be called, The Summit (Frank, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford and sort of Angie Dickenson) wanted to hang out in Vegas for a while. But they didn’t want to pay for it and the studios kind of had them locked down. So they came up with the idea of making a movie based in Vegas. And the movie shows that haphazard nature. Released in 1960, the original Ocean’s Elven was uneven at best, but there’s a coolness and fun about it that makes it a classic. It’s a great party flick. Nothing you need to pay much attention to, but it’s something you have to see if you’re into any of the Rat Pack boys.

Fast-forward to 2001 when ace director Steven Soderbergh gets to idea to bring together of bunch of his favorite actors from his movies and make a fun heist flick himself. A remake of Ocean’s Eleven. And it’s better than and almost as cool as the original.

It’s about a guy named Danny Ocean (George Clooney) who just got out of prison. He immediately goes to Hollywood where his old buddy, Dusty Ryan (Brad Pitt), is teaching the stars to play poker. (This is a great scene where Joshua Jackson and Topher Grace (an alumni of Soderbergh’s Traffic) spoof themselves and their dumbass image. I gain more respect for these guys the more I see them do this kind of stuff.)

Soon Danny is talking Dusty into helping him rob three casinos in Vegas on the same night. But before they can take on this daunting task (something that is impossible. According to their friend Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould) only three guys have gotten close to even robbing ONE casino and they were all caught (or killed) before they got to the parking lot) they have to assemble a crew.

This motley crew consists of expert pick-pocket Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon), old-school thief Saul Bloom (Carl Reiner in his best role, acting or directing, in years), inside man Frankie Cattone (Bernie Mac), ace drivers Turk and Virgil Malloy (Scott Caan and Casey Affleck who I can only guess got the role because of Matt), acrobat Yen Mu-Shuu (real-life acrobat Shaobo Qin), munitions expert Basher Tarr (Don Cheadle) and computer hacker Livingston Dell (Edward Jemison from Soderbergh’s little seen Schizopolis). Add in Reuben, Danny and Rusty and that’s where you get your eleven.

But in Danny’s way is the owner of these three casinos, Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia in his first big production since 1998′s Desperate Measures). He’s one of the biggest men in Vegas and has a habit of making people disappear, and then their families suffer. A real bastard.

Why would Danny choose this guy to piss off? Easy. A woman. Tess Ocean (newcomer Julia Roberts…well, it says “Introducing”!) to be exact. Danny’s ex-wife is now with Terry and Danny knows that this is a horrible idea. So, for her safety, Danny’s robbing the casinos.

Right.

Even though this version is tighter and more formal than the original you can tell that these guys had just as much fun making it as Frank and the boys did back in 1960. And that’s what makes this movie so cool. Is it a great film like Traffic or Erin Brockovich? No. It wasn’t meant to be. It’s just a really fun heist comedy. And everybody works so well with each other that it’s hard to believe that they all haven’t made a lot of movies together. (Of course Don Cheadle is used to filling Sammy Davis, Jr.’s shoes. He played him in the 1998 bio-pic The Rat Pack.)

That said, everybody puts in really good performances here. And Julia gets better looking the older she gets. Very strange. And Soderbergh, since he’s worked with most of these guys before, knows what he wants from each of them and knows how to get it.

And, for us movie geeks, there are all kinds of little in-jokes, most of which I didn’t catch because I was having too much fun with the movie to pay attention to the little details. (Just to keep you watching, check out Brad’s tattoo, a cup he holds at the circus, the name of the guy Terry says can watch the fight on HBO, the crowd at the fight and one of the guards that Virgil and Turk (their names are a reference, too) talk to during the heist. His face isn’t shown, but you hear his voice. There are plenty of others, but I don’t want to take all of the fun away.)

This is a great flick. Then again, when was the last time Soderbergh made a bad movie? The last one that I heard was bad with The Underneath back in 1995, and I’ve really only heard that from one person. (This is his eleventh movie, by the way.)