12 Dapper Men.

We watched Ocean's Twelve a few days ago and while the clothes were lush and the scenery fab, the charm was gone. Admittedly, the 'charm' of the first was rooted the maddeningly forgivable arrogance of guys like George Clooney and Brad Pitt, so maybe losing it was a good thing. We were entertained well enough, I suppose--Soderbergh et al can be infuriatingly engaging and witty--but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being schooled in dudeness.

I know that the Oceans' franchise is supposed to be essentially non-violent: an occasional beating, but no gunplay and no death. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but when I contrast Oceans' 12 with some of the better-known heist movies (Ronin, Heat, The Score, The Good Thief, etc.), I see an unusual focus on fashion, elegance, grace, wit and charm instead of grit, brains, tenacity and risk-taking. Implausibly beautiful characters are no more engaging than implausibly macho ones and Danny Ocean bothers me about as much as John McLane.

Do I sound bitter?