This was obviously supposed to be a buddy picture, but director Steven Soderberg had way too many buddies to create anything intelligible. As a result, we have the wasted casting of actors Carl Reiner, Andy Garcia, and Don Cheadle, as well as Casey Affleck (Ben's lesser talented younger brother).
The movie opens with Danny Ocean (Clooney) at his parole hearing. After he crosses his heart and hopes to die, he is released to prey upon society. A walking testament to Rehabilitation, Danny walks the straight and narrow for about eighteen seconds; by then he's out of the state to meet fellow criminal mastermind Rusty Ryan (aka, Brad Pitt), and the battle for cutest dimples is on.
At this point, Soderberg & Co. decided the picture didn't have enough handsome male leads, so Danny signs on pickpocket Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon). Racking up free tickets on his Felon's Frequent Fliers card, Danny trots the globe and assembles the rest of his eleven-member team. His mission: to rob movie-goers, I mean, casino owner Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), of 160 million dollars. And to win his ex-wife Tess Ocean (Julia Roberts) back from Benedict, if it's convenient.
I'm sure if I were to rent his movie again and slow-scan through it, I would discover an ingenious, Mission Impossible-type plot (TV series, not the movie) in there somewhere. As it is, all I can remember is that the plan involved getting a Chinese contortionist into the vault, since Danny couldn't afford better explosives. This was accomplished with the aid of the Orgasmatron (or something like that), a big device that propmaster Steve Melton stole from some Sci-Fi movie, probably Battlefield Earth. The Orgasmatron generates a GIGANTIC electro-magnetic pulse which takes out all the power in Las Vegas, except for the bad guys' watches, enabling the little gay Chinese chap to sneak into the vault undetected.
Eventually, Danny manages to sneak out 160 million porno leaflets, which Terry Benedict apparently keeps in the vault with his money. He gets the money too, of course, since this habitual felon is the movie's Hero. Danny also gets Benedict to admit that he would rather keep his 160 million dollars than Danny's wife. Well, when Tess hears about that, she realizes Benedict is way too smart for her, and dumps him for prisonbitch Danny Ocean.
So, as in all good movies, the bad guys win the money AND the girl, and law-abiding (well, by comparison) entrepreneur Benedict is wiped out.
If you get the DVD, be sure to catch the comic outtake where Julia Roberts (who will rake in about $30 million dollars for this role) claims with a straight face that she would have made the film for twenty bucks. Maybe Warner Brothers can keep that in mind the next time her salary negotiations come up.
Four Hoovers for this one.