It turns out that the famous con man Danny Ocean has a younger sister – Debbie. She has not yet succeeded in committing a major robbery: prison interfered. Having masterfully played remorse, Debbie gets out early and decides to enrich her resume with the biggest heist in history.
Her target is a necklace worth 150 million dollars. In order to pull it off, she needs a team: Debbie invites women of different ages, but of the same degree of crookedness. The venue is the Met Gala Ball, the most glamorous event in the world, where celebrities and businessmen flaunt bizarre outfits and lavish jewelry.
Scenario and dramaturgy
There’s no point in hiding the obvious. Naturally, Debbie and company succeed. Certainly with certain amendments and surprises, but this is not the main thing here. The main thing in both Soderbergh’s and Gary Ross’ movies is the journey. How to twist and show everything in such a way that it is intriguing, fresh, inventive? Actually, this applies to all heist movies.
And here lies the main problem of Ross’s picture: unlike the films of the original trilogy, there is no intrigue, no freshness, no inventiveness in it. Ocean’s 8 Girlfriends is well-cut, like a designer dress c Met Gala, played by great actresses and actors, like in the 2001 movie, but it doesn’t even try to take on a life of its own. Beautiful and talented people walk around in stylish interiors, but the necessary fire never appears. It doesn’t even spark.
Returning to the genre question, before us is a picture about a robbery, in which the main thing – the actual robbery – is the last thing to worry about. Of course, you can watch the organization of the Met Gala, surprised by the appearance of stars, but it is unlikely that the creators of the picture set themselves as a goal to make a feature film about the ball. And if they did, then pity here first of all actresses.
In general, the global problem is that Ocean’s 8 Girlfriends is a very cautious movie, afraid to go beyond the limits or say something sharp. Hollywood has come up with a concept that fits the zeitgeist, but they haven’t decided what to do with it. (At the very least, to choose more interesting directors).
In the grayness of the picture lies its main gimmick. It’s not awful enough to be outright criticized, but it also doesn’t reach for something serious and meaningful to be talked about with gusto. As a result, the movie exists in such a borderline zone of oblivion behind a single viewing. Except that it’s not hard to fall carelessly into that border zone.
Picture and actors
Simply listing big names in the credits is a marketing ploy. It’s the director’s job to create chemistry between the actors on set. Which Gary Ross failed to do. Each of the announced actresses play their fee professionally and with honor, but when they come together it is not quite clear why.
In this case, almost everyone tried to prescribe the motivation: one is on the verge of bankruptcy, the second wants revenge, the third just likes to steal, the fourth goes for company, the fifth has no friends, and so on, but what sounds good on paper, does not always look good in the movie.
Gary Ross is a director without much of a signature. His only stylistic and semantic success is the 1998 tragicomedy Pleasantville. Then followed the horse drama Favorite and the first part of the teen dystopia The Hunger Games. In fact, he was supposed to copy Soderbergh’s style without too much pathos. But the latter was not to Ross’s liking. And the director himself could not offer something new.
