Putting together the cast for a heist movie feels like you are putting together a team for an actual heist. While this might not be true for every movie about a group coming together as one to steal something, it’s mandatory for the ‘Ocean’ film series. Following the leads of the 1960 version that had a little known group of guys who went by the name the Rat Pack and following it up over four decades later with a cast of modern day A-listers. I guess what I am trying to say is if you are putting out a movie with Ocean’s in the title, you pretty much have to bring the kind of cast that looks great on paper and even better on the screen.
Good news, in the latest version to bear that franchise name, the casting is on point, but the razzle and dazzle is the thing that is lacking. This one having Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock) who is just getting out of jail for being a part of a con. Now while she did know what she was doing she was the only one who took the fall as her boyfriend Claude Becker (Richard Armitage) sang like a canary and did not do her time. So five years later and after lots of thinking, Debbie has a new plan and all she needs is a team with useful skills to pull it off. The first thing she does is hook up with Lou (Cate Blanchett) her right hand woman who will help her put all the players together. Those players are Rose Weil (Helena Bonham Carter), Amita (Mindy Kaling), Nine Ball (Rihanna), Constance (Awkwafina), and Tammy (Sarah Paulson) all who plan to do something never done before. The target this time is not a casino, but instead the Met Gala and a neckless worth a ton of money worn by someone famous named Daphne Kluger (Anne Hathaway). All they have to do is steal the neckless in a room where everybody is watching in what is the third best heist someone with the last name Ocean has ever pulled.
Hearing that they were making an all-female version of this franchise got me pretty excited, because I knew it would be quite fun to watch. With the announcement of the cast my excitement stayed even keel, but I had some doubts if what made the last versions so damn fun would be present? The answer to that question is quite simply, a no. For some reason Gary Ross, who both wrote and directed this version forgot to add the zigging and zagging that makes a heist movie, and particularly the Ocean’s series.
While the film has the one big job it is going after it is lacking in all the other turns that make a film like this. The cast is good they can’t make up for the stories faults, the biggest being the lack of a central figure, the team is out to get. Instead it is personal for just one so you don’t really have anyone to root against. Even though with its problems the cast help deliver a semi entertaining film, however instead of feeling like a sister to the Ocean’s films of the pas, it ends of feeling more like a distant cousin, but the one you like despite their flaws.
