As caper films go, Oceans 8 is an enjoyably light fizz that goes down easy even if it’s instantly forgettable. It has a solid cast having a good deal of fun over a serviceable heist. That’s it, and that is enough. Early in a movie summer already chock full of superhero retreads and one notable franchise misstep, here’s a movie that, like those, deploys a formula set-up from its predecessors—yet somehow flies on the backs of its eight good-humored stars.
Directed by Gary Ross, picture opens with another Ocean—this time, Debbie (Sandra Bullock)—released from the New Jersey slammer after serving five years on a frame-up from a high-rolling, art dealer ex-boyfriend (Richard Armitage). Perfect mascara and make-up at a parole hearing tell us everything we need to know—the movie is, above all, a star vehicle. Because she’s likeable Bullock and therefore no one can deny her anything, the parole board believes her plea to lead a “quiet life” on the outside. But Debbie has other plans that she’s spent her time in solitary perfecting.
After a quick stop at the local mausoleum to visit deceased brother Danny (George Clooney), Debbie hits Manhattan’s 5th Avenue, scamming cosmetics from Bergdorf Goodman before scheming her way into a suite at the Plaza. There’s silly fun to be had in these short cons, the deadpan Bullock never breaking a sweat.
Debbie’s master plan? Infiltrate the tony soiree that is the annual Met Gala and make off with off a $150m diamond necklace housed in the museum’s maximum-security basement vault. First step is recruiting old pal, Lu (enigmatic, stylish Cate Blanchett), Debbie’s bestie from their early years scoring waterfront Bingo. Lu is also the smartest in the room, enough to know that Debbie’s M.O. is always a job with an “an asterisk,” or a double-con: Debbie wants the necklace, but wants, and probably more, revenge on her former paramour. As Lu cautions, an asterisk is a great way to get busted.
They can’t do it alone. The pair recruits fading, down-on-her-luck Irish designer Rose Weil (a very funny Helena Bonham Carter), with a new fashion line on the skids but also a direct line to famous actress and guest of honor Daphne Kluger (Anne Hathaway), keen to be draped in Rose’s next creation and have her neck adorned with that famed, 6.5 lb. diamond ornament.
Enter Sarah Paulson as a squeaky clean suburban homemaker, mother and trafficker of a pilfered consumer goods stockpile housed in her garage (“I tell my family it’s eBay”) who takes a job at Vogue as eyes and ears on the inside, Rihanna as a cool-headed tech whiz named Nine Ball who hacks into the Met’s security network, Queens card hustler Awkwafina as Constance, whose job is to remove the necklace from said neck and lastly, diamond authority Mindy Kaling as Amita, who will divide, literally, and conquer the jewels.
As a spinoff of Steven Soderbergh’s Oceans 11 pictures, this version succeeds primarily because of its cast, working hard to sell it even when characters are shortchanged at the expense of its expeditious screenplay. One unexpected standout is a wry Bonham-Carter, stealing every scene she can, particularly an extended gag where she examines the necklace before impatient security guards, employing a set of ill-tempered, high-tech spyglasses. If you think about this moment, it’s a testament to her resources because there is virtually no dialogue on her part, yet it goes on for a couple minutes, full of eccentric manner as she extends, then overextends her visitation’s welcome.
But the real surprise here and best in show is a game Anne Hathaway sending up the persona of a vapid, cynical starlet with opposing public and private faces, a wickedly self-effacing portrait of a persona with which Hathaway herself has often been unfairly tagged.
And Blanchett—equally at home in high-toned art movies, Chekov on Broadway last season, a drag show at Stonewall or the occasional commercial venture—is, at times, slickly, transfixingly fun to watch as she confidently prowls through her scenes, all platinum, pixie chopped bangs, leather slacks and sunglasses, glammed up and clearly having a jaunt. One wishes she’d been given a richer role; ditto Paulson.
To be sure, there is a lot of insider fun to be had in the planning of the posh Met Gala (pronounced gah-la, make no mistake) and requisite celebrity cameos from Anna Wintour, Serena Williams, Katie Holmes and more. Late in the picture, James Corden shows up as a comically suspicious insurance fraud investigator who has a history with Debbie’s family and runs a series of funny interrogations.
Ross, the director of Seabiscuit, Pleasantville, The Hunger Games and other smoothly carpentered commercial outings, does not make the material move or snap like the great heist films; rather, he stands back and lets the actresses do the heavy lifting. There isn’t a shot or sequence in the film that might truly be called artful or even memorable, and though it has the requisite Hollywood sheen courtesy of cinematographer Eigil Bryld, its verve comes neither from the perfectly passable screenplay Ross co-authored with Olivia Milch or any degree of executional precision.
It all comes from the actresses, and that’s just fine. Oceans 8 is an airy, enjoyable ride.
3 stars.
