OCEAN'S 8
When Steven Soderbergh decided to remake Lewis Milestone’s original Oceans 11 in 2001, he had just won the Best Director Oscar for Traffic. Prior to that he had a run of box office successes (Erin Brockovich, Out of Sight) that had followed on from a period of making experimental and outright art-house films such as Kafka, The Underneath, Schizopolis and King of the Hill. He applied the loose, energised handheld style he explored in the bizarre and hilarious Schizopolis to the shooting style in Out of Sight, The Limey, Erin Brockovich & Traffic. What this meant was those films had a kinetic vibrancy to them that had been lacking in his earlier films. When he decided to turn his hand to, what was for him, a studio popcorn picture with Oceans 11, the result was a slick, star-studded comedy that effortlessly wove ‘heist movie’ tropes and movie star cameos into what felt like an indie picture.
Several sequels later, and despite the diminishing returns of Oceans 12 & 13, Soderbergh has taken a back seat as producer and Gary Ross (director of Pleasantville, Seabiscuit and The Hunger Games) helms his take on a female-centric version of an Oceans heist flick.
Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock) is fresh out of jail, barely minutes into her new-found freedom, she convinces old friend Lou (Cate Blanchett) to pull another job: to steal a $150 million Cartier diamond necklace. During an extended recruitment drive, Debbie employs the dark and sneaky talents of jeweller Amita (Mindy Kalin), pickpocket extraordinaire Constance (Awkwafina), suburban mum and fencer of stolen goods Tammy (Sarah Paulson), hacker Nineball (Rhianna), overly anxious fashion designer Rose (Helena Bonham Carter) and uptight actress Daphne Kluger (Anne Hathaway).
The plan to lift the diamonds is interesting enough and executed with aplomb and there’s some small moments of comedy that raise a chuckle but on the whole, this is a missed opportunity. The energy and verve that Soderbergh imbued in his films is entirely lacking in the relatively leaden treatment Gary Ross gives the material. There’s some nice meta moments referring to the dominance of female characters in the story, when Debbie states at one point: “a ‘him’ gets noticed, a ‘her’ is invisible” but given the talents of the cast, it’s the comedy vibe that should’ve been amped up - given that's the key selling point of the other Oceans films. What this ends up devolving into feels like a pale facsimile of the other films with the key leads feeling like they're deliberately aping their male counterparts particularly Blanchett who appears to be doing a variant of Brad Pitt's character, Rusty. None of this is helped by the appearance of James Corden as an insurance investigator, presumably cast in this because a focus group told the studio that Car Pool Karaoke is big with whatever female demographic they're targeting. A shame, because Corden's presence in a film terminally obliterates audience good-will so once his expansive mug looms into view, any semblance of suspension of disbelief evaporates.
Why there wasn't a push to create a more singular heist movie that would be it's own thing is a mystery. Something slightly grittier or more hard-boiled would've distanced this from the original enough to give it room to breath. Instead, it's just adequate, which considering the talents of those involved just isn't good enough. If anyone needed to be reminded of why good screenwriters get paid a lot, I present Exhibit A.