Is Ocean’s Eleven the coolest film ever made? It’s certainly a contender. But what makes Danny Ocean and his ten professional thieves so cool goes beyond their movie star good looks, stylish wardrobe, chummy camaraderie, and glitzy Las Vegas backdrop. Part of it entails what they don’t do and say. They don’t need violence to rob the world’s most impenetrable safe because they’re smarter than that. They don’t need to articulate every idea because they have an unspoken understanding. And although they’re criminals, they adhere to a personal code that supports the group, which is more than can be said for their target. Director Steven Soderbergh described the film to Entertainment Weekly as “a throwback. Nobody gets killed. There’s no bad language. It’s just an old-fashioned heist movie with lots of stars.” Like many Soderbergh films, Ocean’s Eleven also confronts an unscrupulous commercial entity, represented here by three casinos and their ruthless owner. In an increasingly corporatized world, George Clooney’s Danny Ocean and his crew represent a team of Davids taking on a Goliath who wears expensive suits and thinks of money first. While the house always wins because multinationals and the economic divide have rigged the game, the viewer watches Danny play a perfect hand. In the parlance of the film’s hero, they bet big, beat the house, and get away with the American Dream of love and money. And they make it look damn cool.

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