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?
Tailkinker
27th Jul 2005
Ocean's Eleven (2001)
18th Sep 2004
Ocean's Eleven (2001)
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?
Chosen 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.
1st Aug 2004
Ocean's Eleven (2001)
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.
3rd Jun 2004
Ocean's Eleven (2001)
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. A Boesky is therefore an inside man claiming to be a wealthy bankroller. A Jim Brown is the confrontation between Linus and Frank, Miss Daisy is the getaway vehicle, two Jethros are the Malloy twins, a Leon Spinks is the disrupted boxing match, and an Ella Fitzgerald refers to the looped tape.
10th May 2004
Ocean's Eleven (2001)
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.
17th Feb 2004
Ocean's Eleven (2001)
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.
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Answer: "Clair de Lune" by Claude Debussy.
Tailkinker ★