The shallow story is told quickly. The former famous thief and swindler Danny Ocean (George Clooney) leaves prison after four years, and is eager to land the last big coup. Together with his friend (Prad Pitt) he is seeking eleven specialists to rob three of the biggest, best guarded casinos in Las Vegas. The owner of the casinos (Andy Garcia) is living with Oceans former wife (Julia Roberts), which gives way to a typical Hollywood love story between Clooney and Roberts. Ocean isn’t just forced to overcome the security system, but also to regain the love of his life. The end of the story is conceivable within the first ten minutes, which makes most of the remaining one and a half hours nearly unbearable. Sometimes there are small highlight and it has to be admitted that the end of the picture is splendid.
Steven Soderberghs remake of the Frank Sinatras classic is a disappointment, although Soderbergh has gathered a lot of stars. Of course, Bratt Pitt and George Clooney are as cool as a cucumber and every woman’s heart in the cinema melts, when they appear. And Julia Roberts will always be a men’s dream, even if she wears the most unfashionable clothes on earth. But this is not enough for a film to be lively and good.
Everybody who had seen the original picture with Sinatra and is looking for the new version should get the trailer from the internet. It is for free and shows the best parts of the picture. A John Travolta quoting from the picture “Swordfish” summarises the film perfectly: “Hollywood studios produce al lot of shit. Completely trivial and useless shit… No, I’m not talking about horrible actors, narrow-minded directors, outrageous scripts and superficial small talk, which most of the studios call prose.”