Starting with the characters in both films, the eleven men each had similar roles in each of the movies, the only major difference being that the old one had all old war buddies of the 82nd airborne take part in the job while the most recent film had a group comprised of a bunch of professional thieves. First the Portrayal of who this movie is named after, Danny Ocean. George Clooney took many of Sinatra’s aspects by being serious but funny to his group of thieves in particular one in each movie. In the old version Sinatra kept playing jokes one the one character who was portrayed by Elliot Gould in the new film while George Clooney had fun with Matt Damon by messing with his head and putting a burden of pressure on him in being the man who infiltrated the vault. Secondly you had the reconnaissance groups, the electrician, the old sap who put in some financial aid and let everyone come over to his big house to plan and meet, but there were some differences in some of the characters. In Ocean’s Eleven the cast had to be slightly changed, there was less men scoping out the casino because they had a genius who hacked into the casinos security systems and monitored all there cameras, the little athletic Asian man who’s job was to sit in the safe while the 2 brothers wheeled him to the vault was a new character, also Freddy the casino dealer played by Bernie Mac was added to the group of cons along with old Saul who faked a heart attack in the security room to stage a distraction. Since the times where different the directors had to make the audience believe what each group of eleven did to pull of the heist was believable or just to far off to grasp. This played a major role in how each film was made.
After you look past the characters and the way each job was done the outcomes and the reasons for pulling the job were different in each movie. Ocean’s 11 had a unfortunate outcome as they ironically lost the money in a way that people would say “Only in the movies,” while George Clooney had better luck as he took the house and got away with the money. Also ironically in the first film they had a man who was part of the job, who just got out of jail, and died at the end cause of a heart attack and also took the millions they stole with him into the crematory. Now in the first film the man having a heart attack was the person who ruined their plans, the person who got Duke Santos to start looking at them but in the remake the man having the heart attack was the key to their success. In the new version the character by the name of Saul got the explosives into the vault by saying they were precious pieces of jewelry and also faked a heart attack in the security room while Andy Garcia, Terry Benedict in this movie, let him watch his briefcase being taken to the vault. Dramatic irony plays into both these movies beautifully.
In closing, the new film did correlate with the old on many levels but in my personal opinion if I had to choose one film to watch over the other it would be the newer version starring George Clooney. You might say its cause it’s more related to the time I’m living in and I guess your right. Both films although are great and they both took me 2 times to watch to understand how they got away with it, even though Sinatra’s heist was unfortunately burned as he thought he could move the money in his dead buddy’s coffin.
