Ocean’s Eleven

Dear Diary…

Last night I saw George Clooney and Brad Pitt and Matt Damon! They are so dreamy! George Clooney wears that middle-aged, scruffy-yet-dapper look like nobody since, well, since Ol’ Blue Eyes did! And Brad! with those chiseled features, clear blue eyes! Sigh! I could stare into them forever! Matt Damon of course, everybody’s favourte shy boy-next door! Audrey thinks he’s creepy, but I think he’s just misunderstood. Oh how I’d love to bring him home and make him happy. I wonder what our children would be like?

So yes, I saw Ocean’s Eleven last night. And was it good? well, read on…


If you’ve seen Out of Sight: Collector’s Edition, you’ve seen Ocean’s 11. Most of the same stylistic devices are used, the scoring is similar. In a sense, it is what has become trademark Steven Soderburgh. This is not to say that it wasn’t enjoyable – far from it in fact. It was a very enjoyable film. Very slick, great dialogue, a decent job done by the actors (Andy Garcia’s looking more and more like he’s Al ‘scene-chewer’ Pacino’s heir) for the most part, great music and respectable cinematography. However, like many of Soderburgh’s recent films, there’s a sort of emptiness about this film, a lack of any heart and soul in it. Perhaps it’s so technically proficient that it seems made by robots. But there’s something missing. And my other complaint has to do with Julia Roberts. Not with her acting, which was fine, but with her involvement in the film. Before she and her subplot showed up, the film was moving along very nicely – great pacing. However, from the moment she shows up in the story line, the pacing very noticeably begins to slip. This culminates in a completely unnecessary and fairly lengthy epilogue that’s entire purpose is to show that George Clooney gets his girl. Which we had just seen at the end of the movie a few minutes ago. So why add that? Probably to give each of George, Brad and Julia just that much more screen time. Perhaps a necessary concession to get such big stars to appear together in this film, but a detrimental concession none the less. My bet is that in fan edits of this movie, the epilogue will not be included.

So go see it if you like stylish and slick crime capers. Oh, and as usual, go see it for Don Cheadle, who continues to be one of my favourite actors, each role adding to my appreciation for him.

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