Watched it again last night with my lady.
Damn, this might just be the most purely delightful movie of all time. The story has more holes than my sock drawer, but who cares? Great cast, great soundtrack, great sets, great cinematography, great dialogue, and a great, great, great director turned a silly caper movie into genuine cinema. Every scene, every shot, is interesting and just so damn FUN. So many great lines. It’s pure joy to watch.
I assume you’re talking about the one with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, et al.?
Yes, it is indeed a joy, a JOY to watch! 
Clooney and Pitt went together like Redford and Newman, or Bacon and Ward.
Plus the Mormon bros. I’ve been using the line ‘I’m going to drop you like 3rd period French for years.’
Or Laurel and Hardy! 
Ted Nugent called. He wants his shirt back.
By the end of the movie, I almost didn’t care if they got the money or not; it was just so much fun watching them try to steal it.
There’s a great moment near the end. Rusty is coaching Linus before he has to con Terry Benedict…
For me, its variations on Elliott Gould’s line, “We all go back to the thing, with the guy, at the place.”
I love the movie as well.
Wait, Sinatra or Clooney?
I am going to have a qualified agreement with the OP. I really, really enjoy Ocean’s 11 (2001) for being a fun heist movie, with an amazing cast and wonderful interactions between them. The dialogue and quips are fast and funny, and you definitely feel drawn in. I own a copy on DVD and probably watch at least once a year.
That being said . . . the whole Tess subplot feels more and more toxic as the years go by. Admittedly, I am seeing it in probably the most negative light, but still, to have the sole (for all intents and purposes) female member of the cast being a ‘prize’ for the two alpha males seems . . . solidly dated and objectionable. Yes, I absolutely give Danny credit for saying to Tess that he lied, he was wrong, and he has to live with the consequences of such actions by losing Tess is good, but he still dumps on her choices and says Benedict is wrong for her. Yes, as an insider, he has information that Tess doesn’t, but he is still disturbing in making choices for her.
And he still compromises his friends freedom and profit in order to pursue Tess, which he is called out on and promises he will not due to the people who are risking their lives and futures. I know we all love the Hollywood ending in which Tess apparently decides that Danny is a loveable liar and would rather be back with Danny, but I’d (if I were a friend of Tess) rather her see her thank Danny, but dump him and Danny and go find someone who isn’t a creep.
And I repeat, I acknowledge that I am seeing this from a unromantic, unHollywood POV, but it reminded me really closely of a female friend of mine that went from lying, verbally controlling piece of crap to another of the same ilk. Since Ocean’s 11 is pretty much all guy gags all the time (especially the Mormon siblings) and the ilk (mother and daughter stripper pair), the ‘serious’ romantic subplot is already just a bit of a sidetrack, and I’d almost rather it gone.
One of my all-time favorites too, along with Ocean’s 13 (we won’t even mention 12) in which Al Pacino does a great Willy Bank, stand-in for Donald Trump.
The end line, where Danny (Clooney) advises Rusty (Pitt) to “settle down, have a couple of kids” is priceless.
Yeah, a lot of it doesn’t age well. I haven’t seen Ocean’s 8 but it feel like a bit too much of them over-correcting. I’d love to get Soderbergh back to do Ocean’s 14 with a mixed-gender crew instead.
Okay, I’m going to go off on a tangent here. I’m an unabashed fan of the whole trilogy, and the more I see Ocean’s Twelve the more I appreciate it. Why? Because it feels like Soderbergh giving one big “Fuck you” to Hollywood. I can just imagine the meeting where some producer pitched the movie as “Let’s do the same thing again, but in Europe!” And Steven narrows his eyes and says “Sure, I’ll make that movie for you.” Then the producer goes to the premiere and instead of watching “Ocean’s 11 in Europe” it’s a weird 1970’s French film that’s mostly just the guys sitting in hotel rooms talking and there’s not even a heist in the end!
I think I read recently that the scene where Pitt has his head on the bar (probably drunk), silent, while Clooney has a dialog with himself: “Do you think we need one more? … OK, one more…” was all improvised.
Great film.
Clooney. The Sinatra movie isn’t actually a good movie.
It’s not great, I agree. I will say, though, that Julia Roberts takes a small role and knocks it out of the park. She lays down two extremely sick burns, one each on George Clooney and Andy Garcia, and it’s a delight.
It also helps Clooney showcase his acting talent. Clooney, in every scene, is almost ludicrously, inhumanly cool. It might be the coolest a person’s ever been in a movie… except when he’s with Tess, and Clooney becomes just a tiny bit flustered. She can faze him effortlessly. He doesn’t overdo it at all, it’s subtle, but it’s there.
But yeah, I wish it was a little less of a sausage fest. I will say I really enjoyed “Ocean’s 8,” as a related point. Again, goddamn murderer’s row of a cast there.
Oh, agreed 100%. I did say I loved and owned the movie, just that Tess (as a character) is smart enough to do better. If she were a more shallow character (or less well acted), we probably wouldn’t care, and be nothing more than the prize the script seems to be making her. It is by far not the only movie where one’s initial enjoyment is tempered by better social understandings as time goes by.
Clooney and Pitt do banter like nobody’s business. I love the scene where Danny gives Rusty the dramatic speech about why they should rob the casino. Rusty asks him if he’s been practicing that speech, and Danny immediately admits to it and asks if he rushed it.
Tiger Beat thing was harsh
“All reds!”
I had seen Ocean’s 11 when it came out but I missed 12, 13 and 8. I finally got around to seeing those others during covid and they are all great! I rarely watch movies a second time but I will definitely be checking these out again.
If you’re a fan of the heist genre, I definitely recommend the British series Hustle, which is on Amazon Prime now. It’s no Pitt & Clooney but it’s definitely in the same vein.
Ocean’s 11 manages to pull off the fairly rare feat of being so much fun that even the totally gigantic enormous plot holes and implausibilities don’t really make it less fun. And normally things like that drive me up the wall.
I literally see a new plot hole every time I watch it.
The one that I find hilarious is how Danny and the huge guy, Bruiser, are running a con in that Bruiser is pretending to beat him up while Danny sneaks through the ceiling to meet up with Matt Damon.
But… like, how long is he beating Danny up for, anyway? That part of the heist takes at least fifteen minutes. If you beat a guy up for fifteen minutes he’d be dead. Also, the door’s unlocked. If one of the muscles outside just opens the door to say “the boss doesn’t want him DEAD, Bruiser… hey, where the hell did he go?” the entire heist is ruined.
I don’t care. I love the movie.