Synopsis for
Ocean's Eleven (2001) More at IMDbPro »

The film opens with Daniel Ocean (George Clooney), a convicted thief, being questioned by a parole board upon his release from prison. He claims a reason for his crime was that his wife, Tess Ocean (Julia Roberts), left him, and when asked what he would do if released from prison, there is no answer.

Ocean is released from a New Jersey prison with a plan already in place to avenge the man who stole his ex-wife, Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia). Benedict owns three Las Vegas hotels--The Bellagio, The Mirage, and The MGM Grand. All three hotels share one vault, and Ocean plans to assemble a crew to take advantage of this.

His first pick up is old friend and current Blackjack dealer Frank Catton (Bernie Mac), in Atlantic City. Next, he's off to Hollywood to reunite with his right hand man and other half Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt). Rusty is skeptical of Danny's plan but pledges his support and his valuable insight. Together he and Danny go over exactly who they will need in their crew and who they will get to finance the operation. The financier turns out to be the flamboyantly wealthy Reuben Tishkoff (Elliot Gould), a mutual enemy of Benedict's.

Rusty questions Danny's reasons for the potential heist, not knowing that Danny's real aim is to take down the man who stole his wife. Danny gives Rusty a contrived and humorous speech to digress from the topic, his secret intact.

With Reuben's investment secure, we now get introduced to the rest of "Ocean's 11." Frank Catton gets a transfer to Las vegas as a Blackjack dealer to serve as an inside man. The Malloy brothers, Turk (Scott Caan) and Virgil (Casey Affleck), are a humorous pair from Utah that serve all sorts of functions throughout the movie. In charge of the electronics is the anxious and jumpy Livingston Dell (Eddie Jemison). Basher Tarr (Don Cheadle) is Danny and Rusty's top choice for a demolitions man, but his other project and subsequent arrest requires Rusty to rescue him from the cops, which he does by impersonating a superior ATF agent.

In San Diego they find their "Grease Man" in Yen (Shaobo Qin) and have to guilt old-timer Saul Bloom (Carl Reiner) out of retirement in St. Petersburg, Florida. With 10 people already committed, Danny goes to Chicago to recruit rookie pickpocket Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon), son of the infamous thief Bobby Caldwell. Linus is wooed by Danny and "Ocean's 11" travels to Las Vegas to organize their scheme at Reuben's house. Linus still appears reluctant until Reuben abruptly tells him to "get in the god damn house" with everybody else. Every detail of the plan is laid out for the gang, with the exception of Danny's true motive, which remains a secret. At this point we learn that "Ocean's 11" plans to grab over $150 million from Benedict's casinos on the night of a big boxing match.

The team makes camp at the Bellagio, and goes through the various procedures necessary for carrying out the theft. The team builds an exact replica of the vault in a warehouse and Linus is assigned the task of shadowing Terry Benedict, much to his chagrin. Linus is excited to be included in the group but upset that, with all his skills, he is given little responsbility. During his surveillance of Benedict, he unknowingly reveals Danny's secret to Rusty when he shows Rusty Terry's gorgeous girlfriend, Tess.

Rusty confronts Danny at the warehouse, where he admits that Terry and Tess are dating and his intention is to win her back. Rusty is understandably upset and threatens to abandon the project, but Danny assures him the rest of the crew is not in jeopardy of losing their fair share of the score. At this point we see that Tess and Terry's relationship is a little bit awkward and not very close.

Danny confronts Tess in a restaurant and admits to her the reason he is here, which makes her angry, but through this hostile interaction we can see that Tess and Danny are far closer than Tess and Terry could ever be. Danny and Tess have a brief conversation before Terry shows up to join his wife for dinner, oblivious to the fact that he is to be robbed soon.

A disgruntled Linus ignores Terry now and starts following Danny to see what he is hiding, at Rusty's request. Furthering Linus' frustration, when the crew takes a detour in California, he screws up and is responsible for the team nearly getting busted. Back at the hotel, the team is worried because Danny has been "red-flagged" and will now be watched wherever he goes in the hotel. With his anger and embarrassment boiling over, Linus reveals to everyone that Danny is after Tess and that is the reason he was caught, and Rusty confesses to Danny that he told Linus to watch him. With Danny now unable to take a step without being seen, the responsibility of "triggering the vault" is given to Linus, a show of respect he had been dying for, but now that the task is actually conferred upon him, he is nervous. As we will find out later, the whole situation was created by Rusty and Danny to give Linus the opportunity to play a key role.

Fight Night has arrived and, with everything going according to plan, the team prepares to make the robbery. In the replica of the vault the team built they recorded nothing happening. While Rusty, Saul, Turk, and Virgil distract the vault monitors in the security headquarters, Livingston taps into their computer systems so that all they see from then on is a peaceful vault with nothing happening, although it is not the real vault--just the replica.

With everybody doing their part, Danny and Linus break into the vault, with Yen waiting inside, all unseen by the video cameras. Beforehand, Rusty calls Terry to reveal that he is being robbed. Incredulous, Terry goes to the security center to find that nothing is happening, until the cameras switch and show the three men in the vault packing all the money into bags marked with "X"'s. In reality, the bags are filled with fliers, not the money, per the plan. (*It is to be assumed these fliers and bags were brought into the vault by the team. However, it is easy to tell that they in fact bring nothing with them into the vault. This loophole is admitted to by the director in the DVD's Special Features*).

The robbers rig the "money" with explosives and split it into two groups. They threaten to blow up all the money unless Benedict lets them get away with half of it. Upon hearing this, Benedict calls the S.W.A.T. team, but the team that responds, unbeknownst to Terry, is the rest of Ocean's crew. Benedict complies with Rusty's demands knowing that the S.W.A.T. team is on the way. With half the "money" in the vault and half the "money" being driven away, Benedict accepts his loss and focuses on catching the culprits by allowing the S.W.A.T. team to enter the vault under cover of darkness. In the dark, the crew stages a confrontation while they are actually loading the real money into bags. During this confrontation, the "money" explodes and Benedict thinks he has lost everything. He comes down to the vault and talks with the S.W.A.T. team on their way out. Here he discovers that the two groups of money that blew up were actually just fliers, that somebody made a duplicate of his vault, and that the S.W.A.T. team walked out with ALL of the money.

Terry goes to confront Danny, rightly assuming that he is somehow responsible. Danny, while never admitting anything, tells Terry that he can get the money back if he's willing to give up Tess, who is watching the scene on closed circuit TV in her hotel room. Terry agrees and Tess is heartbroken. Frustrated beyond belief, Terry gives Danny to the police and he is arrested for violating his parole. Tess encounters Danny before the police take him away, and she comes back to him, just like he planned. Everyone in the crew (minus Ocean), $15 million richer, watches the fountain show in front of the Bellagio to the music of Claire de Lune.

3 to 6 months later, Tess and Danny are reunited outside of the same New Jersey prison from the beginning of the movie. Rusty drives them off, everyone victorious in every aspect, with two of Benedict's henchmen in undercover pursuit.