Ocean’s Eleven just reeks of coolness. It features smart characters in sleek clothes who just emit their coolness walking down the streets of Las Vegas, and who also rob three casinos for $160 million while they’re there. Our hero is Daniel Ocean (George Clooney), just released from jail, and planning on robbing the casinos owned by Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), who is now with Ocean’s ex-wife, Tess (Julia Roberts). Ocean gets together a rat pack of eleven men to organize and execute this major robbery.

Now if it sounds like this is a movie where the good guys are all unremorseful thieves, it is. In fact, two of them are explicitly Mormon. The film takes a Marxist twist setting up Benedict as the “bad guy”. For example, the first thing we learn about Benedict is that he is having a Las Vegas landmark razed. We are also led to believe that Tess isn’t totally happy with him, which means we shouldn’t like him. On the other hand though, the blatant immorality of the thing isn’t really an issue due to the way the film handles it – which is not at all. Aside from a comment about a character possibly opting out because he may have “gotten religion”, the morality of their behavior is never discussed at all. Never a doubt or second-guessing. In fact, most of them go about it matter of factly, as if they were at war and the difficult things they do are simply because they have got to be done. In other words, the whole thing is so fantastic and surreal that the issue of ethics is simply a matter of a suspension of disbelief.

As mentioned before, Ocean’s Eleven thrives largely because it’s cool. It has its share of plot holes, but succeeds in making it fun enough to let it pass. Clooney and Brad Pitt do a great job of being effortlessly cool and each of the personalities of other characters add to the flavor of it all. Of course, they are largely stock characters, but the fact that their personalities come out of them as much as they do still makes the film a fun environment.

Garcia does a great job of making us hate him for no real reason and the only really uninteresting character is Tess. There is a constant dry humor that underlines the whole film and really fits well with the slick atmosphere. The narrative is constantly moving and engaging, the finale surprising us while it does Benedict. Director Steven Soderbergh has fun with the cameras and music and develops a feel to the film that equals the feel of walking through an expensive casino.

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