Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

klheintz Ocean's 11 follows the story of 10 of Danny Ocean's closest friends while they plan the biggest heist Vegas has ever seen. But instead of a summary, I will discuss what I thought the film did right and what I thought it did not do right. I will lean towards what it did not do right as I think the film didn't do the greatest job of making it really feel like a heist filmBut, to start off, I will talk about what it did right. Frank Sinatra as Danny Ocean was a great choice for the time and, with the addition of Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., this movie has been easily recognizable for the past 50+ years since its release. As this is the first of the "Rat Pack" films, it makes sense that it would be remembered for so long. The film also does a great job of showing Vegas back in the day. I have only ever seen pictures of what the Strip was like back then and I think they did a good job of showcasing the style from that time. From the sets to the costumes, I felt like I was seeing how Vegas used to be without being overwhelmed by the details. The banter between the group was also well done. It gave them backstory and showed that they were all close during their military service, it did feel a little forced sometimes, but overall, I liked the conversations between Sinatra and Martin's characters especially.Now is the time I would like to talk about what I did not like about the film and I apologize if it's a lot but I did not enjoy the film as much as I would have liked to. There is a lot to the story that was unnecessary. Little side stories that added nothing to the film from relationship issues, to poorly explained planning stages, and back to weird character motivation, the movie never quite felt like it knew exactly what it was doing. The Ocean's failing relationship goes nowhere, Harmon's disagreement with the plan is washed away so quickly that it made no sense to even have a scene like that, and the whole execution of the heist being so rushed. Many aspects of the film were poorly executed. Ocean's 11 took way too long building backstory for characters you didn't care for and, what felt like to me, shoehorned in a "bad guy" in the last 20 minutes of the film!The comedy aspect of the film was presented very poorly. Not once did I laugh, or even blow some extra air out of my nose, except during parts that were intended to be serious. I could only shake my head at the strangeness of some of the sequence of the scenes. There were also many jarring shots that felt like the editing in the film was someone pressing the skip button and the flow was broken up when they showed the 5 casinos getting robbed one by one, and then the money being loaded into bags one by one, and then the characters leaving the casinos one by one was just too much of the same. Overall, it was not a film I enjoyed. No likable characters could be forgiven in a movie about criminals but what I can't forgive is the fluctuating motives that don't make sense most of the time, the jarring edits that pull from the movie, and the lengthy repetitive scenes made parts of the film feel like a chore.

talisencrw Though I had only seen Steven Soderbergh's remake, made shortly after Frank Sinatra died, in the interim I had achieved quite an appreciation of Sinatra's work, first as a game-changing jazz vocalist and, more recently, as an actor. I picked up the 4-pack of both Milestone's original and Soderbergh's trilogy, and, having both dedicated myself to some of Milestone's films and Sinatra's appearances, decided to give the Rat Pack's version a spin. The coolness and fun of the actors rubs off nicely on the proceedings, and it's extremely enjoyable to breathe in. Both Angie Dickinson and Shirley MacLaine are great fun too, as are the Vegas mainstays that make cameos. The extras on my DVD, especially Dickinson and Sinatra talking about making the film, years later when he guest-hosted The Tonight Show, were also splendid and mad my enjoyment even more profound. I highly recommend it to anyone who thinks the remake is great. As fine as a filmmaker as Soderbergh is, it pales in comparison, because as fine as today's stars are, they just aren't The Rat Pack! Also, the ending is one of the greatest. I have always felt that comedy is the hardest genre to do, and it dates so badly, but this holds up quite nicely...

Evan Wessman (CinematicInceptions) I don't blame Steven Soderburgh and company one bit for remaking the story of this crime bunch. The idea is great: rob three Vegas casinos by killing the power of the whole city for a few minutes. However, this original didn't deliver much on the idea outside of bringing together what was apparently the most star-studded cast of the decade. The problem with that is that most of the eleven look too similar to differentiate. At least eight of them wear the same suits and have basically the same hair styles. The only people I could tell apart were Danny Ocean, Josh, the guy who dresses like a cowboy, and sometimes Jimmy Foster. But, I guess that's conformist fifties values for you. The remake in 2001 learned from this by making all of the members of their eleven distinctly different and giving them each a memorable introduction. The story is similar to most crime movies with assembling the team and then getting through the heist, but everything moved pretty slowly. The scenes are long and there isn't that much that happens in most of them. Besides that, there are a some tangent story lines that get a little too much attention. The most prominent of these is Jimmy Foster's relationship with his mother and step-father, followed by Danny's strained relationship with his ex-wife Beatrice. All three of these minor characters got more exposition and attention than many of the eleven, which is kind of a problem considering the size of their roles in the overall plot. We don't actually meet most of the gang until the scene when they all gather around the pool table. This is one of the better scenes in the movie. Then there is the entire third act after the heist that deals with the aftermath of one of the team member's deaths and Jimmy Foster's fifth stepfather trying to catch the team for robbing all the casinos. There is a bit of a twist at the end when the remaining ten discover that all of their money has been cremated and they all walk off regretting the cost of their crime.It could have been much better in a technical sense. The acting was nothing special in any sense even if it wasn't overtly bad. The script was poorly paced, as I've stated before, and didn't give the characters much personality, which was too bad because the actors didn't either. It also spent more time showing what happens within the casino during the robbery than it did showing the actual robbery. I probably don't need to state why this is problematic. Any other problems I might have had with it were a result of late-fifties culture and style. I guess I've made it sound like there is nothing good about the execution, which isn't true. There are certainly things that the director and his crew did right, but it's not more than we've come to expect from any movie. It's like what you would get if you made a cake with slightly but noticeably unbalanced ingredients.If you're a fan of any of the 2000's Ocean movies, know that this is not an older version of the reboot in story or style. The same goes for those who liked this and are considering the reboot trilogy. If you like the "Rat Pack", then I guess this is a good pick, because I can't see many other reasons that people might like it. Overall Rating: 6/10.

classicsoncall The writing and the technical stuff make the 2001 do-over a better and flashier movie to watch, but you can't beat the original for the star quality - Sinatra, Dino, Sammy Jr., Lawford, Bishop, Angie - all the original Rat Packers in full glory. It's an OK movie, but even as a caper flick, the emphasis is more on the real-life camaraderie of the players than on the story itself. My summary line pretty much tells the story; all these guys were in a class by themselves at the top of the heap in Hollywood and the entertainment industry of the era.It was kind of interesting to catch the names of the headliners appearing at the five casinos targeted for the big heist in the story. None of them, except maybe for Danny Thomas and Red Skelton, were as big as the principals in the flick. And since I mention Skelton, his cameo was written very poorly I thought. He was made out to be a boorish dolt and a slug when his real persona was just the opposite. What a wasted moment.Now if you think about the story to any degree, a whole lot of things don't make much sense. How for example, did Dean Martin show up as a lounge act at one of the casinos? That was never explained unless I missed it. The back and forth intrusions by Richard Conte's character into secure areas to rig the wiring at the various showplaces relied on a lot of coincidental timing with his co-conspirators and nothing really ever interrupted his progress. Nothing ever goes that smooth. And then, as far as blowing the whole thing with the money in the coffin gimmick, since when does a coffin get cremated along with the body? If anything, that could have been written with Cesar Romero and the undertaker figuring things out and splitting the big pot between them.But in the end, how much of that really matters? This was the Rat Pack in full battle mode and they pulled it off without really pulling it off. They all had a good time, and probably even a better one off the set while trolling Las Vegas for real between filming. Sammy Davis Jr's. self-effacing comment probably said it best to sum up the feel-good camaraderie between himself and the rest of the Rat Packers - "I knew this color would come in handy some day."