Question: When Saul is dressing up in front of the mirror for the final night, he collapses on the bed. Rusty, who's watching the scene, doesn't seem too bothered about it. Was Saul simply rehearsing his part, including the fainting, or did Rusty have enough confidence in him to believe he would not fail even if he felt ill?
Ocean's Eleven (2001)
1 commented-on entry since 9 Mar '25, 20:09
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Andy Garcia, Don Cheadle, Casey Affleck, Carl Reiner, Scott Caan, Bernie Mac, Elliott Gould, Carol Florence, Cecelia Ann Birt, Paul L. Nolan
Continuity mistake: Linus and Rusty are standing in the Botanical Garden at the Bellagio going over Linus' observations. Rusty has a cocktail glass of shrimp in hand. When they change angles he has a plate in his hand, then change back, it's a glass. Full screen version. (00:43:40)
Virgil Malloy: Are you a man?
Turk Malloy: Yes, nineteen.
Virgil Malloy: Are you alive?
Turk Malloy: Yes, eighteen.
Virgil Malloy: Evel Knievel.
Turk Malloy: ...shit.
Trivia: The order in which people left the fountain was completely improvised - Steven Soderbergh just told the actors to leave in whatever order they felt was right.
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.
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Chosen answer: Rusty is aware that Saul is just rehearsing. He knows Saul well enough to be able to tell if he was really having a medical episode.
raywest ★
I see this a little differently. When Saul struggles to stand, I think it's real; he's having trouble. Rusty notices, but they have to keep moving. From a filmmaking standpoint, this moment is meant to make the audience wonder if Saul is having an episode, helping build tension in the security room scene later. While his struggle is real when getting dressed, it serves as misdirection, making us think the heist is falling apart when it's actually going perfectly to plan.
jshy7979