Ocean's Eleven Analysis

Ocean's Eleven

Directed by: Steven Soderberg

Starring: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon

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I recently watched Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! which I thought was a heist film, but now after watching this I feel that it wasn't a heist film. Ocean's Eleven, throws in so much of security jargon all over and it adds so many conflicts in the way during the heist, unlike Oye Lucky! where he gets away so easily everywhere. Here, the level of security or the power of antagonism is so high, that it raises the curiosity for us to see how they are going to pull this off. There is a screenwriting rule, which says that your characters can get into trouble because of chance but not out of it; this is followed religiously in this film. There is a better level of satisfaction when you see hard work go into something for anything that our characters get in a movie, if they get or get away with things easily it is difficult to empathize with them.

Here, the protagonists are on the wrong side of the law and there is not much reason for us to empathize with them; we just watch them to get amazed by how they can pull off something like that. But they add an element into the plot, which makes us root for the character a little bit; Tess, ex-wife of Danny Ocean. Ethically there's nothing wrong on the part of Benedict, but the film taps on our idea of heart break and jealousy which tries to make us feel that Danny should defeat Benedict. That subplot isn't much of a problem because it isn't focused much on. The twist in the ending works very well, because the misdirection leads to another possible ending and not to something which the audience won't buy would be an ending; which is when they expect a twist.

The crafts; editing, cinematography and sound design all are done in a way that they don't bring focus to themselves in solidarity and are just done in a way to keep you in the world of the story. There's not much you remember about the film after you watch it, but the film delivers what it sets out to and does that well.