Danny Ocean and his war buddies decide to rob Las Vegas casinos. The original stars Frank Sinatra as Danny Ocean and the rest of the Rat Pack as the rest of the eleven. Honestly, that’s about it, counting Ocean’s Eleven. But every once in a while there are remakes that are just as good or better than the original: John Carpenter’s The Thing, Scarface, and the remake of Suspiria to name a few. Usually, they are the exact same movie with nothing new to say. The trilogy is Steven Soderbergh’s thesis on making movies, and by extension, Hollywood itself. But despite what everyone thinks, these aren’t just breezy caper movies. It has everything: Movie stars, glamour, suspense, laughs, and fun.
Ocean’s Eleven is the first installment in one of the most famous trilogies in American movies. After winning an Oscar for a thought-provoking documentary-style ensemble film about the illegal drug trade, he does what any director would do: Make a heist film with the biggest movie stars at the time. One of the people he beat for the Oscar, was himself. And he beat Steven Soderbergh for Erin Brockovich. He beat Ang Lee for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It’s also the film that’s responsible for Mexico looking yellow in every single American-made crime thriller that takes place there (Looking at you, Breaking Bad). Steven Soderbergh had just won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film, Traffic.
