Ocean's Eleven - Came perilously close to liking the remake more

Having just been to Vegas and embarassingly ignorant of Rat Pack movies, I decided to watch the original Ocean’s Eleven. Throughout the movie, I found myself glad of the updates that the remake affords. Different social mores and all jokes should be taken with a grain of salt, I know, but hearing Dean Martin claim that what he wanted to do with his share of the money would be to repeal the 14th and 20th amendments and make slaves of the women made pretty clear what a different time 1960 was, especially as there’s nary a wince meant to be elicited by the fact that when he says it there’s a black guy in frame with him.

Admitted, the outfits and style are total class. I saw that photo of Lawford, Sinatra, Martin and Davis in various degrees of impeccable formal dress playing pool in more than one place in Nevada and it doesn’t lose it’s touch when in motion.

Admitted, the musical numbers are gorgeous.

Admitted, Dean Martin, constitutional aspirations aside, is an insanely charming human being, and more than a few of Sinatra and Lawford’s jokes hit the mark. Not to mention as someone who hadn’t really seen any of Sinatra's acting work, I instantly understood that he wasn’t a singer turned actor in any cynical meaning of the combination. Danny Ocean, proud and cold on the outside. But nothing cold about his loyal to his squadron, and or about his feelings about the fact that his marriage to the woman he loves isn’t salvageable. One hell of a solid package built up around a broken heart.

However, I’m a sucker for a clever hard-bitten line and an ensemble cast that is slightly more developed than “that old guy with the scar and the wife” and “some guy who works at a casino whose name I don’t know,” the whole way down the line to fill out the rest of the eleven that ain’t the Rat Pack.

Don’t think it wasn’t killing me as a perpetual pisser-on of remakes to know that I liked the remake more throughout most of a classic movie.

Then came the end. And it was perfect. A dozen times better than silhouettes in front of the Bellagio water show. I will say no more about it, but it’s simple and funny and pretty darn brave.

Least I thought so until my father cynically pointed out that *SPOILER* it was probably because of the Hollywood Code that *SPOILER* charming as they were, no way they would be allowed to keep that money because as criminals, they would not be allowed to have profited from their crime at the end of the movie.

This sent me reeling to try to prove other movies from the era where the charming crooks have gotten away with it at the end of the movie. I couldn’t come up with one, and I pretty much only watch movies from that era that involve some sort of crime. I guess that I consider the part where I like them as a victory of sorts and ignore the fact that at the end of the movie, anyone who’s done something wrong is dead, disgraced, or in jail even if they got there in glamourous fashion.

By way of settling this dispute, my father found it right there in wikipedia. “All criminal action had to be punished, and neither the crime nor the criminal could elicit sympathy from the audience”

My response “But Robert Mitchum had a career that whole time and he’s a total degenerate!”

Makes me wonder about this whole romantic fatalistic view of crime portrayed in movies so attractively still is the after effects of this. You watch Bonnie and Clyde, Dillinger, Jesse James, Butch Cassidy movies knowing how they’ll end up. Movies like Rififi, Night and The City, Out of the Past, The Killing, would they have packed the same punch if at the end, someone strolled off into the sunset with a bundle of dough?

And I’m not sure if it even comes across as a denunciation of crime, like “if they’d just been straight instead of crooks, then they wouldn’t be dead.” It comes across more like “even the best-laid, most faithfully executed plans isn’t going to stop you and your gang’s personal flaws and shit luck from putting you in the ground.” Christ, who can’t identify with that?

Not saying I don’t just totally LOVE post-code 1970s movies, but in a weird way how the code forced storytellers to portray life had such a beautifully opposite effect from what was intended that I’m a little grateful to it. C’mon, nowadays for every time code-less Hollywood provides you with a moment of honesty about sex or violence that you’re glad was allowed to be shown, there’s about 80 times you’re like “okay, there really wasn’t a reason to see that guy do a line of blow off a stripper’s ass and then shoot a guy in the face, I mean, he's not even a major character and it wasn't even surprising. Where's the art in that?”

So here's to fatalism, and the code that inadvertently made the bad guys all the more glorious.