Frankie und seine Spießgesellen

I first saw this movie when I was a little kid. Being a big Sinatra fan and a lover of 60's and 70's movies I watched it again last night. I remembered loving it as a kid but now I have to say that this movie stinks.

Sure it looks all 60's cool and has Sinatra, Martin, and Davis but honestly it was Cesar Romero who stole the show. Romero housed every member of the rat pack. This guy was on a different level from the rest of the cast and it showed. Sinatra was phoning it in as was Martin. The only guys even trying to act were Davis and Lawford. After the film was over I had a new found respect for Cesar Romero.

Okay now that I've crapped on the acting which was mediocre with the exception of Cesar R. I really have to crap on the writing, but this is more like something after eating five black bean burritos with chiles and a quart of Mexican tap water.

Who is the Greek guy? Why is he even in the film? It looks like Sinatra has the thing planned out what did this guy do? I guess he was there for comic relief but not only was he annoying but his purpose is never really explained. Why would the 11 cut him in, he didn't do anything.

Next, you mean to tell me that there is no security in the money room at a casino. I mean basically these guys turn off the lights and only have to subdue one or two money counters before getting to the safe at each casino. I can suspend my disbelief as much as the next guy but you'd have to be brain dead to buy into this part of the story.

Finally, the Ocean's 11 gang are spread out from Phoenix to Salt Lake, to San Francisco and Los Angeles. The gang descends on Vegas to pull the heist but then as a matter of coincidence everybody's mistress, mom and fiancé also decide to go to Vegas for the New Year's festivities, to throw a monkey wrench in the heist and put Cesar Romero on the case. The script is weak. Decent story but the execution is lame from the get go.

After seeing so many rave reviews for this flick I just had to chime in. Giving it a 9 out of 10 because this "isn't supposed to be a good movie" is a sorry excuse. So is the lame excuse "hey these guys are just being themselves and goofing off like they do when the cameras aren't rolling." To my eyes the Rat Pack weren't having fun. They looked bored and like they were all mailing it in. Looks more like they had a contractual obligation to make this flick and they didn't put any effort into it. Like I said the only guys trying were Sammy Davis Jr, and the scene stealing Cesar Romero.

As a heist film this movie stinks. Rating 1/10 Good premise, that's it. Acting stinks for the most part: 3/10 (Cesar gets an 11/10.) Script: 0/10 Style Points: 8/10 pretty cool display of 60's cool. Needed more exteriors and cars to bring it to 10/10 the sets were cheap too.

Overall a 4/10 for me. Sinatra and gang normally cool but are borderline lame in this movie and it's the script that should have been put in that casket with Richard Conte, not the mony.

Ocean's 11 never tries to be brilliant and is only sometimes good. The thin plot is a set up for the "boys" to look sharp (and they sometimes do), sing songs (which they do well) and to show off 1960 Las Vegas (which by today's standards looks pretty shabby).

This is a second rate heist story with a few gangsters thrown in. But after all, we have Sinatra and company. You can see that the excellent film, The Rat Pack, was very right on. Sinatra is his arrogant self. Martin is relaxed, Lawford is suave and the singing by Sammy Davis Jr. is great.

Ocean's 11 is a snap shot of what was "cool" in the ultimate era of coolness. It's all here, the clubs, the Marilyn Monroe look a likes, the flashy clothes and lots of money. It's better than imitations such as Swingers since Ocean's 11 is the source. Of course it includes the legendary bad treatment of women and African Americans. The actresses are either add-ons or pathetic martyrs (Angie Dickinson). As for Sammy, he puts up with the garbage man part, a racial slur (all in good fun of course!) and the self centeredness of these guys. I just admire him because he had to do it, so he could perform.

Back to the "fun". The boys get to be clever, then there's a surprise ending and finally we see them shuffle hung over in front of a casino. Every few years I check out Ocean's 11 not just to watch this silly movie but also to see the rats (or brats?) and chuckle (and wince) at an amazing time in the USA, baby.

I remember back in the day when the commercials were out for Ocean's Eleven it was described as the heist of all time. It wasn't exactly that, but there is a spirit of camaraderie that is present through out the film.

Frank Sinatra had signed a picture deal with Warner Brothers and was beginning a long term commitment to the Sands in Las Vegas. What better way than to combine everything at once. A film on location in Las Vegas.

So Frank got his pallies together and they filmed Ocean's Eleven in between shows at the Sands. They also managed to get into another film, several of the principal players in Ocean's Eleven did guest shots in Pepe while at the Sands.

Ocean's Eleven has a lighthearted insouciance about it, a group of former Airborne Rangers get together in Las Vegas for a heist of the big casinos carried on with military precision. Why waste all that good airborne training now that they're civilians.

Sinatra doesn't sing in this, I can't imagine why he didn't give himself a song here, but Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. did sing two numbers suited to their talents.

Ocean's Eleven marked the first time that Richard Conte worked in a Sinatra film. He became a Sinatra retainer in his later years, appearing in several Sinatra films. They parted when Conte appeared in The Godfather against Frank's wishes.

After Ocean's Eleven came Sergeants Three with the main cast members appearing again. After that the Rat Pack broke up with these guys going their own way, though many of them did have joint projects together over the years. The quality of the films went down hill, except for Robin and the Seven Hoods. That was a musical and not something to be done in your spare time.

The remake of Ocean's Eleven that George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and several other name players of today did was a far more serious film. Good in its own way, but just not the same.

Not the best, But if your a devoted Rat Packer.........It's a fun time and great to see them all in the Vegas of past.. when Vegas WAS VEGAS!! It was still great to see the likes of Donald O'Connor and Red Skelton as the headliners and see the elegant lounges where thery would all perform,up close and personal not for 100-300 feet away. You could walk up to them after a performance and actually chat with them as they left the stage. Everyone was dressed in suits,tuxedos, and formal dresses, wearing furs and everyone smoking. If you remember the the days of no cell phones, using the operator to make long distance calls, no computers, walkmans, cassette and 8 tracks tapes, then this is one movie you should love.

What a difference a few decades make. When this movie was made, these were the coolest guys in the world for anyone over 25. They were cool because they thought so themselves and everyone believed them.

At least we did then. Now we see not only a particularly bad caper movie, we see how uncool these guys really were. Frank was merely a selfish bully, the skinny kind who paid others to rough people up.

So we see many stories here. We see the caper story.

We see the story about 5 guys who pretended to matter and did for a while, long enough to make lots of money and have a lot of sex.

But there's a bigger story here, one that this movie evokes more than any other I know. Its the story of America, the America defined by entertainers, the one the French New Wave thought was real. You can research it quickly by seeing "The Ocean's Eleven Story," a poorly made documentary, but one that hits most of the buttons.

These guys, at this time, were behind making the Mob bigger than they ever had been before. They married the Mob with presidential politics, even pimping to the president. This was where Marilyn's suicide was made inevitable. And Mob hits on Castro, and the embarrassment of the FBI by RFK, and subsequent rage by Frank at being jettisoned.

There is suicide and assassination behind their misogynistic prancing, their assumption that all they had to do was show up, and we would swoon.

This is an important film, if you think film is important.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.