John Stone Joshua Semmi Chris Goss Amy Forman FJT-380 11/31/11 Between George Clooney and Frank Sinatra When the term Las Vegas is brought to mind, thoughts of flamboyant neon lights, casinos, and clubs are often the first things that pop up. Ocean’s Eleven brings all of these thoughts together in a neat package.
Originally made in 1960, the film was remade again in the year 2001 and is considered one of the few movies who’s remake is better than the original, with the 2001 version earning a rating of 7. 7 compared to he 6. 4 of the 1960’s version. Challenging the long standing theory that remakes will forever be overshadowed by their originals, Stephen Soderbergh’s 2001 version of Ocean’s Eleven details exactly how a remake should be.
However, it can be said that reason for the higher scoring on Soderbergh’s version can be accounted by the fact they are almost entirely two different movies and can easily be seen when studying certain parts, notably the relationships between the characters, the robbery, and the love story.In the 1960s version of Ocean’s Eleven, the protagonist, Danny Ocean, takes his gang of military friends to rob five casino’s in Las Vegas. Using a garbage to keep an eye on the prospective casinos they concoct and elaborate plan which in ends in smash and grab robbery on New Years Eve. Along the way, one of Danny’s cohorts, Tony Bergdorf, has a heart attack and dies. Later on, a gangster Duke Santos catches on and offers to retrieve the money for the casino owners. Frightened by Santos’ sudden appearance, Danny decides to store the money in Bergdorf’s coffin.
Unfortunately, the coffin is creamated along with the money. In the 2001 version of Ocean’s Eleven, Danny Ocean rounds together his whole crew to target the vault of the three biggest casinos in Las Vegas, all own by Terry Benedict. He comes together with an elaborate plan to break into the vault during a fight night, as it would hold the most money. They end up fooling Benedict into helping them take the money out of the vault enabling their escape. As with all movies, the beginning of both versions of Ocean’s Eleven is routinely use to introduce the cast of characters, all eleven of them.But this is where the differences begin.
From the beginning it is very apparent that both movies do not use the same cast of characters. Other than protagonist Danny Ocean, the rest of the cast bares different names in regards to the characters. In the 1960’s version it is rather clear from the beginning that all the characters are rather good friends. It is actually mention several times throughout the entire movies that all of them had served as part of a battalion during a war.
In the remade version of Ocean’s Eleven the relationships between the characters cannot be seen as close. In fact the vibe that can be felt between the characters seems to be more business if anything. There is a terseness to their interaction that can be seen more along the lines of business partners, rather than friends. The complexity of the two heists was few and far between. Las Vegas in the 60s was less multidimensional compared to modern day Vegas.
In the 1960s movie the Rat Pack robbed 5 casinos basically using the standard stick up routine.The team took out the power to the city and literally smashed through the doors and ordered the window clerks to hand over the tills, also then took all the contents from the safe. The unsophisticated security made it fairly effortless to succeed. The master plan was to cut the power at midnight on New Year’s Eve while everyone is distracted by the famous New Year’s Eve Song, the veterans have approximately one minute and thirty eight seconds to take down the casinos before the power from the auxiliary motor kicks on.The most complex task was for Tommy to cross the wires in the auxiliary motors to open the doors to the cashier cages instead of them turning on the lights. The total amount of money taken from the 5 casinos was 5 million dollars.
5 million, the getaway, the results. The heist in the 2001 Ocean’s Eleven was an extravagant plot to take down three of the highest profitable casinos in Las Vega’s all own by one man, Terry Benedict. Unlike the 1960 version, Danny and the crew planned to take down one vault at the Bellagio Casino that held an amount of money that could match all the chips in the three casinos, equaling 150 million dollars.Now this may seem like a big difference but due to inflation, 1 million dollars in 2001 would equal 6 million in1960.
So we are looking at 30 million in 5 casinos versus 150 million in 3 casinos, technically one vault. Works Cited. Ocean’s Eleven. Dir. Lewis Milestone. Perf.
Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford. Warner Bros. 1960. DVD. Ocean’s Eleven. Dir.
Stephen Soderbergh. Perf. George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Andy Garcia, Julia Roberts. Village Roadshow Pictures.
2001. DVD
