2018 caper film, dir. Gary Ross, Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett;
IMDb /
allmovie.
Con-artist and thief Debbie Ocean gets out of prison, and immediately
plans her biggest heist yet.
The most obvious structural difference between this film and the
Soderbergh-directed trilogy is that each of these people has an actual
personality as well as specific things to do (with one exception, the
fence, whose only character trait is "harrassed mother"), and even
something of a character arc. They're not even all professional
criminals. This is the first of the films that genuinely feels like an
ensemble piece rather than a couple of leads and their hangers-on.
What they do have is a solid chemistry that's blessedly free of the
macho posturing that was an inevitable part of the Soderbergh films.
This isn't a rejected trilogy script dusted off and with changed
character names; it's written with female characters in mind, but at
the same time doesn't make them into generic women.
The problem, though, is that the heist is a bit too straightforward;
that's mostly in keeping with the other films, and presumably there
are limits to how complex you can get when you need to sell enough
tickets to pay for $70 million of production budget. But I could
really have done with a few more things (apparently) going wrong, a
bit more of a sense of challenges to be solved by ingenuity rather
than by magic technology. And there's no villain, no sense of
personal opposition or indeed justification for the criminals'
actions except in a minor side plot.
Particularly notable performances, beyond the leads, come from Anne
Hathaway as the model who's going to be wearing the diamond necklace
that's the target of the theft (with some effective commentary here on
how strict the "beautiful woman" societal role can be), and Helena
Bonham-Carter as a failing fashion designer who's recruited to make
sure she does wear it by designing a dress round it. On the other
hand, towards the end, there are two male roles that seem forced, and
a failed sop to critics; you're already going to annoy the stupid male
fans by having a female-led film that isn't about romance, so why not
make these characters female as well?
This isn't as slick as the 2001 Eleven, but there's a sense of
genuine camaraderie that's missing from those films, and that makes up
for a great deal.
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