New Release Review: Ocean's 8

Ocean's Eight
(2018: Director: Gary Ross. Starring: Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham-Carter)    

SYNOPSIS:

Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock) assembles a criminal gang to pull off a daring heist. They'll need exquisite timing and everything to go just right. What could possibly go wrong?

To say that “everything went like clockwork” has become a platitude, a phrase devoid of meaning in this age of phones and digital watches. A clockwork mechanism involves dozens of intricately crafted parts that have to move past each other without intersection, jam or other hindrance. Second after second, minute after minute, hour after hour, every single part has to do their bit with absolute precision and no margin for error, or the entire thing is worthless. Who wants a faulty clock? Yet, if a heist does go like clockwork then what dramatic stakes can there be? Ocean's Eight has the answer.

Learning from its predecessors, this film reduces the scope of the ensemble from a hefty eleven, no twelve, sorry thirteen, to a rather more manageable eight. There is decent variety in the all-female casting but, whilst each part of a clock must be a carefully chosen fit, the range of women chosen seems to indicate that skill in one field is evidence of skill in another. Amita (Mindy Kaling) is chosen as an expert in one particular craft but, for reasons not explained on screen, she is chosen to support another of the members in a people wrangling exercise.

Also the reduced cast isn't equally employed. Lou (Cate Blanchett) has her moments as a more sober foil to Debbie Ocean's labyrinthine plotting. However, despite being the voice of reason, she never has the chance to show the wild spirit that she is coded as possessing (all leather jackets, California Pacific Highway and motorcycles.) Nine Ball (Rihanna) is a serviceable hacker, and offers a pleasant variety from the sort of racial stereotypes which would typically require her to play a street-savvy street urchin. This leaves Constance (Awkwafina) instead as the huckster-cum-presdigitational pickpocket with a more thuggish flair, (which, if over 2 million views on Youtube is to be believed she can back up). 

Refusing to be defined as merely a fence (a purchaser and redistributor of stolen goods) Tammy (Sarah Paulson) is equally adept at infiltration and deception. A con-woman to rival Debbie Ocean herself. Perhaps she is put in to show that a mother-of-two can still be capable of all sorts of shenanigans. This film seems to view all women as ready, eager even, to embrace a life of crime.

Nevertheless, the film is a heist movie and who doesn’t love a good heist? There is the hallmark misdirection of the Ocean's movies, which I found to be somewhat more plausible than in the first three (Ocean's 11 key manoeuvres required plot holes that you could joyride an armoured truck through to work, whereas this is rather less demanding on suspension of disbelief.)

The practiced use of French and German as a distraction technique and for convincing and persuasion is an enjoyable idea. It’s good to see the attempt to use an actual twist in this take on the Ocean series. An almost throwaway scene with an, in hindsight, misleading voiceover, gives an important clue to a later reveal. A true twist should allow you to take a series of puzzling but explicable events, and reframe them such that a new paradigm can encapsulate and explain them. Ocean's Eight doesn't do that, but it comes the closest of any in the series.

George Clooney’s oleaginous Danny Ocean certainly isn’t missed. His sister was clearly always the brains of the operation and Debbie has the scheming power that befits the age and demonstrated capabilities of the character.

In terms of visual story-telling, Gary Ross prefers to show rather than tell, filling the screen with a dazzling array of jewellery and dresses aimed at impressing a particular target market. Some scenes appear to have been chosen to fit the stars of the show into what I can only describe as fabulous outfits. It would be a crime not to mention Helena Bonham-Carter's thoroughly convincing performance as an out-of-her-depth fashion designer. (A comment about her not being able to act being a delightful meta comment on how good she is.) The costuming is distinct throughout and helps to always make it clear who is who, which can be a problem with ensemble films with physically similar cast members.

Interestingly, children play a much bigger part in this film than expected. Not, thank goodness, that they are involved in the above criminal enterprise, but they act as a distraction for the team on occasion and in one particular case as an aid.

The pacing is relaxed throughout but, classically, a heist is at its most enjoyable when things are going wrong and solutions need to be improvised. Here, everything felt too neat and tidy; there are problems but never any sense of desperation or being out of their depth. The director seems uncomfortable putting the characters in actual physical peril. That is a shame. These ladies would have been more than capable of rising to the occasion, so it's something of an opportunity lost.

Where the film fails most is to convince us that it is a tale of revenge and loss. Whilst a game attempt is made to set this up with Bullock really attempting to sell it, there's just never really any emotional punch to it.

Ultimately the twists in the tale are pleasant to watch, the ensemble does a good job rolling with them but the overall ending is very much of the straightforward “happy ending” variety and would therefore seem to preclude a sequel. If we do get one, we can hope  it’s braver, crazier and more audacious. Let's see what these thieves can do with guts and good planning that charm and cocksure attitude couldn't.

Review by The Guildmaster.