Ocean's Eleven (2001) - 19 questions

Question: When the 2 brothers leave the elevator with the cart with Yen in it, the camera zooms in on the waiters uniform on the floor. Why? Someone asked before 'wouldn't Benedict have seen them change in the elevator'. What I want to know, is why would they leave evidence in the elevator and it never be revisited for the rest of the movie? Seems very strange. Could a part of the movie be missing?

Question: What's the tune at the beginning of the movie when Daniel leaves prison?

Answer: Rodney Yates - David Holmes.

Question: What is the point of having Reuben in the gang? What does he do? Provide them with money? Because everyone else has at least one job, except for him.

Answer: Yes. He's bankrolling the heist.

Question: What kind of car is it that Rusty is driving, when he picks up Danny from jail in the final scene?

Answer: I'm assuming it was the 1963 Ford Falcon Futura Convertible that served as Rusty's car throughout the film. http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_5165-Ford-Falcon-Futura-1963.html.

Question: What is the piece of music in the film when Tess and Terry Benedict are glancing at the artwork on the wall? It also appears during the end credits after the track "69 Police." It doesn't feature on the soundtrack and I can't find it anywhere.

Answer: The song is part of the film's original motion picture score.

Question: What's the point of the whole "Aloe Vera" thing when they're buying the vans? I mean, why would they so desperately need to save a few hundred dollars in such a complex and expensive scheme? They made sure that the dealer would remember those guys that bought two white vans just days prior to the robbery. One would assume that they would want to keep a low profile. Not to mention, I doubt that a car dealer would lower the price just because the guy squeezes his hand.

Answer: It was not to lower the price (although that was a fringe benefit), but rather to intimidate the dealer into letting them pay cash for the vans. Hence, no trace. It was not the hand-squeezing that convinced the dealer, it was the tacit promise of further discomfort if he did not give them a "better deal."

Question: At the end when the team are standing in front of the huge fountain and leave on at the time, what is the music in the background?

Answer: "Clair de Lune" by Claude Debussy.

Question: Don Cheadle wasn't given credit in the film, any reason why?

Answer: He didn't want a credit for his part, he would prefer it was uncredited. As far as I know he has not given a reason.

Question: In the scene where Rusty prepares Linus for his conversation with Benedict as a Gaming Commissions person, Rusty says something like, "And whatever you do, under no circumstances...", and then gets interrupted. Does anyone know what he wanted to tell Linus?

Answer: In the commentary with the actors, Brad Pitt says that they tried a variety of lines, but none seemed to fit, so they just left it.

Question: They use a pinch in this movie to cut the power. How does a pinch actually work? Why did they need one in this film?

Answer: They needed to shut off the power in order to turn off the detectors in the lift-shaft. There was no way to do that locally, so shutting down the entire city was the only option, using an EMP, a massive wave of electromagnetic energy that disrupts electrical equipment. In real life, pinches are generally used to create high-intensity X-rays for scientific study, and they're very large - much larger than the one seen in the film. It is true that they cause electromagnetic interference when fired, but nothing like on the scale seen in the film. However, given that the only source of an EMP with the strength to really black out the whole place would be a nuclear explosion, it's understandable that the makers of the film decided to play around with the laws of physics a bit.

Question: At the end of the film, why are the two 'goons' waiting for George Clooney and Co. nearby? Are they now involved with them as perhaps some sort of bodyguards, or are they just keeping an eye on him on behalf of the casino?

Answer: They have been assigned to watch Clooney by Andy Garcia because Garcia still suspects that Clooney had a role in the robbery. They're waiting for an opportunity to either gather evidence against him or simply beat him up some more.

Question: what is the significance of Danny's whole "house" speech? "Because the house always wins. If you play long enough, never change the stakes, the house takes you. Unless, when the perfect hand comes you bet big, and then you take the house" ?

Answer: Basically, what he's saying is that the casinos are set up so that, in the long term, they win - obviously, really, as they have to make a profit - and that the only way to win there is, when you have a really good hand, to go for it in a big way, and only then can you come out on top. It's about taking an opportunity when you see it - a roundabout way of referring to his own plan, which is extremely risky, but with the right level of commitment (people, finance and so forth) could allow them all to win big.

Question: What is it that Yen is stacking up when he is sitting on the diving board?

Answer: It is a house of playing cards.

Question: Does anyone know what Rusty is referencing with his "A Boskie, a Jim Brown..." speech when he and Danny are getting the blue prints for the vault?

Answer: The implication, from the context of the full conversation, is that these are all names for specific types of cons. The Boesky, for example, may refer to Ivan Boesky, a Wall Street trader who served a prison sentence for an insider dealing scam.

Question: Benedict goes down to the security center after receiving the call from Rusty that it's being robbed. Benedict tells Mr. Walsh to "make the call" and the "SWAT" team comes in. They tell Benedict to cut the power, then an explosion is set off, and so on. But what Benedict and everyone in the security center are actually seeing is a staged event, though it's all happening at the same time. Even if the "eleven" had timed it down to the last second of how things were going to happen, it would have been lapsed due to the few seconds wasted when Danny and Linus had to change the batteries in the trigger for the vault. So, I guess my question is, what are the chances that the tape and actual events would run in time together?

Answer: The battery-related delay doesn't matter - Rusty doesn't call Benedict until after the vault has been successfully breached. Up to that point, Livingston is simply running a looped image of the undisturbed vault. Only once Benedict has reached the control room does the tape of the fake vault start running. This just shows the preparation of the bags and the robbers generally wandering around the vault. Danny and co, down in the vault, would know how roughly long to leave it from the start of the tape to sending the bags up, and they know that the tape will start within a few minutes of them breaching the vault, so that's no real problem, timing-wise. The fake SWAT team show up and head down the liftshaft to the vault area. They then tell Benedict to cut all power to the vault, which he does, and all his screens showing what's going on go blank. During that time, they throw an explosive into the vault and it detonates. When Benedict brings the power back up, he's not looking at the tape any more - he's now seeing real images from the vault cameras. At no point is split-second timing required, nor do they have to worry about the tape being out of time with real events.

Question: When Danny plays Poker with the Teenbeats, he plays his hand as four queens and then says 'I think the Ace is pretty high), the ace is high, but how would that make a difference to the four queens? Also, when Tope or Tofer plays his hand as all reds, does 'all reds' mean anything in poker, it's certainly not a flush, as he has hearts and diamonds in there, is that why Rusty looks depressed as Tofer collects the money?

Answer: To answer your first question: Two people can?t have four queens on the same hand, so when Danny said that he was being sarcastic. In poker the fifth card is sometimes played as "The Kicker", it's a tiebreaker card. I believe it was four nines though and not queens. To answer your second question: All reds means nothing unless they are the same suit. They were just adding a little humor into the movie when they did that. That was a horrible hand.

Question: If Danny was meant to trigger the vault alone, was he meant to do all the stuff that Linus consequently did, like impersonate NGC personnel and swipe Benedict's access card? If so, how stupid was he introducing himself to Benedict when he knew he had to impersonate someone else and do all the stuff that Linus did in order to gain access to the vault with Yen? If the above is false than what was the point of Linus being in the operation and how else were they going to obtain the security codes for the elevator?

Answer: The plan right from the beginning was to get Linus to do that part of the job - they just didn't tell Linus that so that he wouldn't have time to fret about it. Danny introduced himself to Benedict as part of the side-plot to get Tess away from him - he needed to be known to Benedict so that after the robbery he could ask the question that finally causes Tess to leave Benedict. The whole aim was to get Benedict to imprison him so that he couldn't subsequently be linked to the theft.

Question: Why do the crooks stage the scene in which Danny is 'eliminated' from the plan. What advantage do they gain in Linus' ignorance?

Answer: They needed to make sure Linus had confidence in himself and took more responsibility for his actions. Especially after the incident, when he left the van, when he was specifically told to stay in the van.

Question: Is the Mirage an actual casino? I know the MGM Grand and the Bellagio are.

Answer: Yes it is. 3400 S. Las Vegas Blvd. It is kinda shaped like a Y on the Vegas strip about half way.