Ocean’s 11 (1960)
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Ocean’s 11 Movie Review
Ocean’s 11 is a 1960 heist film directed by Lewis Milestone and starring the Rat Pack. It’s the original film which influenced the later Ocean’s franchise in the 2000s and it’s rather weak.
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“There’s only one thing you love, Danny: that’s danger. Cliffhanging.
You could never love a woman like you love danger“
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I find this movie highly dated. It must have been very exciting in 1960, but today it’s rather slow, boring and simply too uneventful and sluggishly paced. The film takes its sweet time to get to the heist itself owing to a slow start which takes literally the whole first half. The second half is much better and much more entertaining, but still lacking any true excitement.
It starts five members of the Rat Pack, of which Frank Sinatra is probably the most memorable one. I personally found Sammy Davis, Jr. the most amusing and endearing actor here and it was wonderful seeing a black man in an early 60s film and portrayed so respectfully. They utilized his music so well and his musical sequences are frequently the highlights of the entire flick.
But other characters are mostly pretty forgettable and although definitely the team has solid dynamic, individually all of them are rather weak owing to particularly subpar character development employed in the film.
Ocean’s 11 has a solid, memorable score and some good songs, but it was weird seeing this movie try to become a musical at times, but never really going fully into that territory. And maybe it would have been better off as a musical, certainly it would have been more fun that way. And fun this movie certainly needed desperately.
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The film has its moments such as some solid heist elements, a couple of fun team sequences and particularly the Shirley MacLaine cameo scene is a scene-stealer. Seeing her drunk and flirtatious was highly amusing and I wish they used her more in the film.
I liked the dialogue here, but the film desperately needed more action in it. The script is also overwritten for a film and it has way too many characters. 1960 was too early for this type of genre so obviously the end result is lacking.
Ocean’s 11 has a solid score, a memorable team dynamic and a couple of fun and endearing sequences, but the movie is mostly overly slow, dull and never managing to generate any real excitement. The character development is also rather weak and the movie is overwritten too. It’s okay as an early heist movie, but far from great.
