--Danny Ocean, leader of the pack

It's good to have two heist/caper films out at the same time. Just as the glow from my third viewing of "The Heist" was wearing off, out comes the ensemble film "Oceans Eleven," a remake of the 1960s film with the Hollywood Rat Pack, which included Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and so forth.

"Ocean's" shows the team and the plan gradually coming together, in a literary technique translated to film called Convergence. This is almost mandatory for a ensemble cast like this one that includes Bernie Mac, Don Cheadle, Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Elliot Gould, Eddie Jemison; Carl Reiner, and Scott Caan.

Steven Soderbergh directed Julia Roberts in "Erin Brockovich," and Clooney with Cheadle in two films. "Traffic" featured Cheadle as a DEA agent babysitting a stoolie against a Mexican drug cartel. In "Out of Sight" he appeared with Jennifer Lopez in the film about some career criminals led by Clooney, who falls for federal marshal Lopez. This film blends crime and romance as well, but not as much although its at the center and might even be the impetus.

"Let me get this straight: you want to knock over a Las Vegas casino?"

Danny Ocean holds up 3 fingers. The bold plan is to knock over the central casino bank vault for a trio of Las Vegas casinos during a heavyweight bout, when it's stuffed with cash for payouts. The technical matters are dribbled out just enough to keep us informed without making us think we're taking a college course.

"These casinos have security better than most nuclear missile sites. We'll need pass codes and key cards..."

"Which we won't have" chimes in Brad Pitt's Ryan.

"And once that barrier is passed, we'll need to get into the elevator with another keycode sequence..."

"Which we can't get" Ryan finishes.

"There are lasers covering the elevator shaft, motion detectors on the floor, and closed-circuit cameras on the vault itself.

"After that, it's a piece of cake" Ocean says cheerily to the confused crew.

"Down there is $150,000,000.00 There's 11 of us. You do the math. So, are you in or out?"

"Ocean's" is like many of the same genre films that have come down the pike, from the award-winning "Topkapi" down to this year's "The Heist." It would exclude last years caper films such as "3,000 Miles To Graceland" and Casey's brother Ben Affleck in "Reindeer Games."

Those last two dealt with casino capers. "Graceland" had a convention of Elvises as the backdrop with Ice T, Kurt Russell and Kevin Costner; while "Reindeer Games" was about the knockover of a Michigan casino during Christmas with Clarence Williams III.

Those were more akin to smash and grabs; not even at the level of Clint Eastwood and co-star Jeff Bridges' "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot." It's like comparing the work of a surgeon to that of a neighborhood butcher's market.

The title comes from the team that was assembled by Danny Ocean, a smooth career criminal who got a crack crew together of likewise reprobates, card sharks, pickpockets, parolees and others who live on the shady side of the law.

There's something in us that likes caper and heist films. David Mamet, director and writer of "The Heist" has done some of the best. His "House of Games" and "The Spanish Prisoner" of a few years ago stand as templates of the New Age legacy of how criminal minds operate.

Heist films of today unlike the past are not as judgmental. One development I particularly like in today's Heist movies is that it is not assured that the crooks, who we have identified with throughout the whole film; lose their loot, their freedom, or their lives. That's like snatching a bottle out of a baby's mouth, and audiences don't like it. But there is a price to pay, even if the people being ripped off aren't good people themselves.

In this case Danny Ocean and his merry band are going to take Andy Garcia's character's casinos for all he's worth, for the money and revenge. Garcia's Terry Benedict is an oily lizardly CEO type combined with the lethality of the "Godfather 4" Corleone heir he's likely to portray from his bridging of Francis Ford Cuppola's "The Godfather Part 3." Garcia is like he was as in "8 Million Ways To Die." There is conflict built-in because Terry's new girlfriend is the ex-wife of Danny Ocean, played by Julia Roberts. The professionals of the team are wary of this emotional development.

"Ocean's Eleven" has a good set up, where we know the stakes, the difficulties of the mission, the conflicts and weaknesses, and so forth. What makes these films interesting is when they have to supersede shortcomings and the inevitable screwups and just plain bad luck that always crop up.

The head techie geek is played by Don Cheadle as Buster. Cheadle, who already bears a resemblance to Sammy Davis Jr. of the original film is the gearhead techie, one of two. His specialty is explosives and their effects. The plan calls for the security systems of Las Vegas to be disrupted, and Basher asks what level of confusion?

"Do you want broke, blind, or bedlam?" Basher asks.

"All three" he's told.

Bernie Mac, the current Flava of the Month after the launch of his successful TV show is Frank, the card dealer and inside man. He gets one of the biggest laughs in "Ocean's Eleven" when he pulls out his Race Card and pays it for full effect when it counts.

One thing the film unintentionally does is call to mind the controversy over the unsolved gunfire death of Tupac Shakur. As anyone who has been to Las Vegas knows, the place is wired up like something out of "Enemy of the State" because there are Arabian sheiks, millionaires and gazillionaires galore, stars and celebrities whose safety must be assured. Privacy is not a concept in that town (however discretion is), and as such they have cameras all over the place, from the streets to the suites.

So how come they act as if they don't know who slew the popular rapper right out on the Las Vegas strip? I'm just asking. But I digress.

"Ocean's Eleven" has a PG-13 rating, but youth writer and family film critic Judy Marker, age 14 pronounced the film "Not For Kids." For her it was too long and oriented for adults, was her verdict. So you know what that means! It's for us to enjoy!

"Ocean's Eleven" deals with marital strife and estranged spouses, including the maxim I heard from one man that "there's no such thing as an ex-wife." I didn't really know what he meant then, but I had an idea. Lots of guys have to be reminded when they say "my wife" when they mean EX-wife, as in served with papers, left without a box to sit on, living in an apartment instead of the house you-all bought, no longer married-ex wife.

There are more films shadowing these life patterns in society, marriage, breakups, getting old, et cetera. The David Mamet film "The Heist" with Gene Hackman and Delroy Lindo dealt with the subplot of getting old, and trying to keep a young feisty wife happy and at home.

"Twilight" starred Susan Sarandon, Hackman, James Garner and Paul Newman about loyalty, friendships and fidelity over decades, and secrets that come back to haunt.

But "Ocean's Eleven" is a Heist Movie that works because it blends these elements fairly well, although there is a bit of a lag in the middle before the heist starts to operate. This is a genuine heist movie, as "Dead Presidents" was not, and which "Set It Off," although one of the better Caper films to come out in recent years technically wasn't.

A Heist film like "The Thomas Crown Affair" deals with one big operation, while a caper film has more than one. "Set It Off" was a female-oriented and operated caper film about a quartet of bank robbers.

"Dead Presidents" sabotaged itself by trying to shoehorn a teen ager's coming of age against a Seventies backdrop and the horrors of the Vietnam War on some urban hood rats. After all that, they remembered and tacked on the caper of a real-life heist of old bank notes on their way to be burnt like an afterthought. By contrast "Ocean's Eleven" weaves the caper throughout, which makes for an engaging time at the movies.

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