Friday, May 10, 2002 | 8:42 a.m.
There are two separate commentary tracks on the DVD of Steven Soderbergh's winning remake of "Ocean's Eleven" (Warner Home Video, $26.98). One is by Soderbergh and screenwriter Ted Griffin, while the other is by Matt Damon, Andy Garcia and Brad Pitt.
The former is by one of the hottest directors in the business, the latter by three above-the-title stars -- and remarkably, both groups are delighted by the film they're discussing, sometime lapsing into silence as they watch.
Needless to say, that rarely happens, but movies such as "Ocean's Eleven" don't happen that often, either. A funny, engaging heist movie with an all-star cast that worked for peanuts, "Eleven" practically defies logic.
Actors practically fell over each other in the rush for speaking parts, lowering their salaries and calling in favors; this is how you get into a party, not how you line up a part in a blockbuster film.
Yet no one involved has any regrets. "We shouldn't have gotten paid for this," Pitt says. "I would have worked with Steven again for free," Julia Roberts says. Their enthusiasm is infectious, and it permeates every frame of the picture. Damon is completely correct in labeling the movie "a ride." Round and round she goes, as they say.
A simple casino-heist caper, "Ocean's Eleven" draws currency from the genuine affection between its actors. Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and Rusty Ryan (Pitt) don't evoke Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin as they do Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn from "Swingers," or Robert Redford and Paul Newman. The way they grin and crack wise through a $160 million robbery makes you hope they get a chance to work together again under similar circumstances, if such circumstances could be re-created.
Don Cheadle, Scott Caan, Casey Affleck, Bernie Mac, Eddie Jemison and Garcia round out the cast, but the two real standouts are Elliott Gould and Carl Reiner.
Gould plays Reuben Tishkoff, a flamboyant casino owner who steals every scene he's in, while Reiner plays Saul Bloom, a semi-retired con man who takes the rest. Both men have an innate elegance about them that lifts the entire film, and they more than keep pace with their younger counterparts. Again, you'd like to see the two of them paired again in a sequel, which Soderbergh will never make.
And bless him for that. In an era when everything in theaters is based on something else, Soderbergh and Griffin took a film they could have easily updated, and instead remade it from pillar to post.
I'll likely watch this DVD again and again, following the roller coaster-like dips and turns of the dialogue and admiring how beautiful Soderbergh managed to make Las Vegas look. Pitt, Damon and Garcia do as much, and they were there when it happened. Just imagine how you'll feel when you watch "Ocean's Eleven" at home.
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