Ocean’s Eleven VS The Italian Job

‘Tis the season for heist movies. I recently rewatched both “Ocean’s Eleven” and “The Italian Job.” Not sure why, I guess I’m just in the heist movie spirit. But, I thought instead of just reviewing each of them, I could compare them to each other and make a dual review. Both were good, but while “Ocean’s Eleven” may be a more popular classic, I enjoyed “The Italian Job” more. Why? Well, let’s talk about it.

Both movies had a great build up and awesome heists. “Ocean’s Eleven” had a bigger and more famous cast (George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Julia Roberts to name a few), but I thought the cast of “The Italian Job” had more unique and interesting characters, which we got to know more about by seeing flashbacks and the backstory of how each of them got into the thief business. Ocean’s did something similar to this when Danny and Rusty were putting the team together, but we didn’t see any flashbacks, only their particular skill set that they’d use for the heist. I thought that by using flashbacks, “The Italian Job” helped build the characters and give them more of a personality, instead of just their individual skill sets. By only having a five man crew, each member had a bigger role in the heist and we learned more about each of them, while in “Ocean’s Eleven”, some of the characters had a fairly small role and were just there in the background.

For ratings, I would rate “Ocean’s Eleven” at 3.5 out of 5 stars and “The Italian Job” at 4.5 out of 5 stars. I mentioned that I liked the characters more in “The Italian Job”, but I also liked the story and motivation more. (Spoilers ahead) “Ocean’s Eleven” focused on robbing The Bellagio, The Mirage and the MGM Grand casinos so Danny could get back his wife from the man who owned the casinos. “The Italian Job” is a tale of revenge when, after a successful heist in Venice, Italy, one of the team members betrays everyone, takes all the gold, and kills the man who brought the whole team together. Both “Ocean’s Eleven” and “The Italian Job” are good movies, but if I had to recommend only one of them for you to check out, it’d be “The Italian Job.”