Game #49: Ocean's Eleven

"I Didn't Realize What a Sausage Fest this Movie Was."

Apart from "Mission Impossible", most Americans probably think of "Ocean's Eleven" when they think of the heist movie genre. A remake of a 60's movie by the same name starring Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack, the film is the epitome of class. A bunch of dashing men from all walks of life banding together to pull of the perfect crime. The main draw of this film is the cast; anyone who wasn't already famous could expect to be in the decades following (except maybe the Amazing Yen.)

I hadn't made a drinking game for a heist flick yet, so I thought, what better place to start than with this film? We ran into some unexpected pitfalls while play-testing this particular game, but one thing's for sure: you can fully expect to be hit hard and fast by these rules. When it comes to making drinking games, I don't play around.

"Ocean's Eleven Cocktails": The Rules

I bought all the fixings for a perfect martini: gin, vermouth and olives. However, upon checking the stock of my liquor cabinet and realizing that a martini can be made with basically anything, I left it up to my players to decide what they wanted.

I made a lot of appletinis that night.

It's still straight liquor, so shut up.

Easy Mode
1. Title drops: Drink whenever the full title, "Ocean's Eleven", is dropped.
2. Drink when they drink.
3. Drink for Daddy Issues.
4. Drink when someone says a number. And remember, a heist is a numbers game.

Medium Mode
All the above rules apply. Also...
1. Title Drops: Drink when someone says the word "Ocean".
2. Drink when a floorplan is shown. I'd like to expand this rule to any scale model or interior spec of their target.

Hard Mode
All the above rules apply. Also...
1. Drink when someone questions the plan.

It's usually Carl Reiner

The Players

The players for tonight's game are...

Krissy Pappau: The Leader (Medium)
Some Guy: The Greasman (Easy)
Champjagne Austgin: The Femme Fetale (Medium)
Big Moose: The Seasoned Veteran (Hard)
Levi: The One who Questions the Plan (Hard)
Pooh Daddy: The Lookout (Sober and loving it)

The Early 2000's

"It's so colorful it hurts," Champjagne Austgin drawled as we made our way through the opening scenes of the film.

The early 2000's were a strange time, the kind of strange that seems unremarkable until you take a hard look back on it and wonder what the fuck we were thinking. Some good things came out of it, but from 2000 until maybe around 2006 (if I'm being generous), the culture was putting out a wave of art that was several different shades of bad. This film is like a microcosm of the early 2000's.

I'm not calling this film a bad film by any means. But in many ways, it's mediocre or at least unimaginative. The film opens on Danny Ocean's release from prison, and each scene is awash with blue hues.

"Look at this blue. Is this one of those blue movies?" -Some Guy

Then, after Danny cleans himself up and arrives at Atlantic City, the color palette takes a drastic shift to indicate that vibrancy and excitement have reentered his life.

"See, look, it's fucking red now. You happy?" -Big Moose

This isn't a bad choice at all, but it's a goddamn obvious and boring choice. The movie is more excited about being slick and presentable than actually being interesting. You can see it all over the film, down to the costume decisions...

"What is she wearing? I don't like it." -Champjagne Austgin

...to the story structure...

"Do I need to explain to you in the form of a montage exactly why this plan is a bad idea?"

...to the music choices. In the aforementioned montage, they used Jessica Simpson's "Take my Breath Away" while flashing onto a would-be thief being shot in the back by casino security.

Get it? Because they literally took his breath away? This movie practically writes itself.

Once again, none of these choices are bad, but they're a tad ornamental and gaudy. The early 2000's (the whole decade really) was very concerned with appearance, concerned with looking good and covering up anything weird or sad we might be feeling deep down inside. Entertainment was smooth, often loud and boisterous, made to distract everyone watching it or listening to it from any crap that might be bubbling up below the surface. Ocean's Eleven is all style and little substance is what I'm saying. An enormous amount of craft was put into this film, but not as much thought. You can pin a lot of this on director Steven Soderbergh, but it also seems to be a sign of the times.

"I think we had shitty music in 2001, too," Big Moose piped up, firing up the Google app on his phone. Sure enough, 2001 is the year that brought us hits such as Train's "Drops of Jupiter", "Smooth Criminal" (by Alien Ant Farm), and of course, Nickleback's "How You Remind Me."

Case. In. Fucking. Point.

Men, Men, Men

This isn't really a movie about any kind of deep themes, though. It's an ensemble piece made to showcase a talented cast of actors. So how does this movie work as a character piece?

Fair to middling. The obvious problem is that there are far too many characters in this film to flesh out completely. The human brain can only safely keep seven sequential numbers memorized. Any higher than that and it becomes more difficult. Eleven main characters, all with dreams and ambitions? Probably not going to happen. But damn it all if they don't have traits.

The movie spends most of its time focusing, of course, on Ocean and his right-hand man, Brad Pitt (or Rusty). Brad Pitt is fond of putting things in his mouth. In nearly every shot, you can see him eating, smoking, or drinking.

Mmm, suck it Brad, suck it real nice.

Our tertiary character is Matt Damon's Linus, the youngest member of the team and the one with most of an arc. He's one of the tougher members of the team to draft, having been noticed not only for his skill but because of his father's reputation. His story takes him from being an outsider to a willing participant.

The rest of them...they all have their moments, weaving through the plot and coming in and out of focus. But we remember most of them for the wrong reasons. Bernie Mac sticks in our minds for his atrocious costumes.

Bright yellow suit. Always a classic.

Don Cheadle is one of the more interesting screen presences in the film, but sports a GOD AWFUL Cockney accent. Like, worse than Dick Van Dyke bad. It is pretty cool that he occasionally uses Cockney Rhyming Slang during the film, though.

It's okay, Don, we still love you.

Then there's the Amazing Yen, a Chinese contortionist who gets hired as Ocean's Greaseman. He just kind of hangs out in traditional Chinese clothes (probably), and doesn't ask questions. He has no lines. Except for one at the very end of the film. The team couldn't have pulled off the heist without him, though.

Although, despite Some Guy and Champjagne's assumptions otherwise, the actor is actually Chinese.

There are more, but the rest of the characters are kind of a wash for me, especially after drinking so much. Hell, you almost never see Casey Affleck again after his character introduction. Most of the characters get their moment in the sun, though, and they all actively contribute to the grand heist at hand, which is actually an impressive feat considering, once again, that there are eleven of them.

Wait, I'm missing somebody...

JULIE

"Is Julia Roberts in this one?" Champjagne asked at one point.

Damn. Forgot about her. Yes, yes she is.

"Yaaaaay. Is she good?"

"She's a girl," Levi replied.

Yeaaaaah, that sums it up. 

"What a...Pretty Woman." -Big Moose

Julia Roberts plays Tess, Clooney's ex-wife, now married to the owner of the very casinos that Clooney wants to rob. Coincidence? I don't think so. Yup, turns out this whole plan was Clooney's convoluted revenge scheme to get back at the man who took his wife away. 

Pretty sure their marriage would have fallen apart at some point anyway, what with Clooney landing in jail most of the time and his complete lack of onscreen chemistry with Roberts. Pretty run-of-the mill stuff going on here. Not sure why I brought it up.

I would like to put forth the theory, though, that Julia Roberts as an actress is the female equivalent of George Clooney. They're both around the same age, they star in similar movies (often portraying the wayward soul finding his/her way back to what's important), and they're both stunning people to look at.

Levi was slightly miffed at the comparison, having a high opinion of Roberts' talent and labelling Clooney as "just a handsome face". Honestly, I've never been really impressed by Julia Roberts, but I do believe she has the chops. So maybe it's more that she's a capable actress but rarely has the chance to show off, while Clooney is less talented by comparison but gets meatier roles. 

For the record, in this particular film, the two of them are both pieces of eye candy. All we could really focus on for the first ten minutes of the film was how George Clooney is more handsome than we all remember.

"His hair isn't good, though. Does his hair get better?" - Champjagne Austgin

Too Drunk to Function

All of this criticism might sound superficial. That's because the Ocean's Eleven drinking game got us so drunk that we lost track of what actually happens.

I finished my first martini about fifteen minutes into the film, and then switched to gin and tonic. There's a brief lull around the middle of the film when the actual heist is happening, but for the most part, it's a constant barrage of drinkable moments being thrown at you, courtesy of one rule in particular: the numbers rule.

I feel like both a genius and an idiot for thinking of this rule. It's tailor made for the heist genre: a genre where the most important thing to the characters is how much they're stealing, how long it's going to take to get from point A to point B, and the dimensions of the building they're robbing. It's a quick way to turn boring exposition into something that's fun for the whole family!

Any scene in front of a projector is so much more interesting.

Our sole provider of any sort of sense was Pooh Daddy, who came in halfway through the game and became our sober guide through the rest of the film. He let us know why it was important that Danny Ocean made an exact replica of the Bellagio's vault. He reminded us which characters were in disguise and which were just playing their-damn-selves. He held our hands, and refused to participate in our bullshit.

There was a lot of that. Like how at one point I was convinced that Ocean's first name was "Frank", which would make this a completely different movie. 

"This is actually just an elaborate set-up for a music video" - Some Guy

Or when we decided to play "Marry, Fuck, Kill" with George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon and everyone was shocked when I admitted I would kill Matt Damon.

"I would do all three to Leo." -Big Moose

Or, most importantly, when we began pairing up members of the team with each other, knowing that somewhere on the internet there is a cache of slash fiction about Danny and Rusty.

"That is what this movie is missing, the gay romance!" - Levi

If I were to pick any movie to put closed captioning on while playing a drinking game, it would be Ocean's Eleven. Now, the fact that you can't tell what's going on without hearing the dialogue, some would say that would make it a BAD movie, but...

I say there are far worse. This is a great movie to watch if you're looking for a fun time that doesn't strain your brain, but still avoids insulting your intelligence.

Something this summer's movies had a hard time achieving.

The Results

I give this game an A-plus. On medium mode, you can expect to get decently drunk by about the halfway point. Here are some other rules to swap out with the numbers rule if you'd like to experiment.

Drink for any instance of gambling
This mostly happens in the first half of the movie, but the majority of the film does take place in a casino. 

Drink when you hear improvisational jazz
One of the weirder music choices in this film. Not the weirdest, though.

Drink when Brad Pitt puts something in his mouth.
You didn't think we'd forget about that, did you?

He's officially a married man, folks

Friends, our next article will be covering For Your Inebriation's 50th game. We've whipped up something special for all of you. A game for a film series that might have influenced your childhood, and no doubt influenced the film industry. A trilogy of epic proportions.

That's right. We're going there and back again.

Like what you see? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, at For Your Inebriation and @KrissyPappau respectively. You'll get weekly updates, behind the scenes drunk talk, and other chatter!

For Your Inebriation is written by Krissy Pappau (Hollis Beck). All "Ocean's Eleven" footage and images are owned by Warner Bros. Pictures.