Ocean's Eleven

Daniel Ocean is released on parole after a four-year jail sentence for theft and immediately starts planning the robbery a high-security vault shared by three Las Vegas casinos. He tracks down his right-hand man and together they assemble a team of eleven guys including an explosives expert, a pickpocket par excellence, two getaway drivers, a card sharp, a geeky electronics genius, and a Chinese acrobat.
It soon transpires that Danny's real goal is to win back his ex-wife and bankrupt the man she's currently dating (who just happens to own the three casinos at the center of the heist).

Plot hole: Where do the flyers come from that are in the bags that are carried out of the vault and into the van? Danny and Linus couldn't have taken them down there and there is no room with the Chinese man. They are carried out to the van before the SWAT team appears, which means they'd have to have been in the vault to start with? In the commentary by Steven Soderbergh he acknowledges that there's no explanation. (01:35:05)

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Trivia: Don Cheadle's billing/crediting in the movie was of significant dispute. Cheadle wanted to be mentioned above the title at the end of the movie - "pre title credits" - as a featured actor, along with Clooney, Pitt, and Damon, as opposed to being mentioned after the credits with the remaining cast members. His ask was refused by the director, and in response to that refusal, Cheadle said that he didn't want to be mentioned anywhere in the credits if he couldn't be granted pre-title credits. Cheadle's ask was granted in both Oceans 12 and Oceans 13, and he is mentioned before the title at the end of each movie.

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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.

Tailkinker

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