Ocean's Eleven

Daniel Ocean (George Clooney) is a convicted thief. his wife, Tess Ocean (Julia Roberts), left him. Ocean is paroled from his New Jersey prison harboring dreams of revenge on Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), the man who stole his ex-wife. Benedict owns 3 Las Vegas casino-hotels: the Bellagio, the Mirage, and the MGM Grand. All three casinos share one vault, and Ocean plans to assemble a crew to steal the vault money.

Gang is blackjack dealer Frank Catton (Bernie Mac), right-hand man Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt). Rusty is skeptical of Danny's plan but pledges his support. The financier turns out to be the flamboyantly wealthy Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould). Reuben is not interested but changes his mind when he learns the target is Benedict, an old enemy of his. Daniel doesn't tell them that part of the reason is revenge against Terry who stole his wife.

Frank Catton gets a transfer to one of Benedict's casinos in Las Vegas to serve as an inside man. The Malloy brothers, Turk (Scott Caan) and Virgil (Casey Affleck), are a humorous pair of car enthusiasts from Utah. 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 require Rusty to rescue him from the cops, which he does by impersonating an arrogant ATF agent.

In San Diego they find their "grease man" in Yen (Shaobo Qin), a circus acrobat. Then they guilt old-timer Saul Bloom (Carl Reiner) out of retirement in St. Petersburg, Florida. Bloom's role is to sneak explosives into the vault by posing as a crooked international arms dealer who needs a safe place to stash some "precious stones." With 10 people already committed, Danny goes to Chicago to recruit the young but highly skilled pickpocket Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon), and "Ocean's 11" travels to Las Vegas to organize their scheme at Reuben's house. Danny believes they can grab over $150 million from Benedict's casinos on the night of a big boxing match.

Linus is assigned to shadow Terry & he tells Rusty about Tess, which reveals Daniel's true motive to Rusty. He confronts Daniel who convinces Rusty that though personal, the heist is professional as well.

Daniel meets Tess & professes his love for her before Terry arrives.

Daniel is kicked off the team & Linus is asked to "trigger the vault", a show of respect he had been dying for, but now that the task is actually conferred upon him, he is nervous. As we find out later, the whole situation was created by Rusty and Danny to give Linus the opportunity to play a key role.

To get close to the vault, Linus poses as an agent of the Nevada Gaming Commission who comes to Terry with evidence that the Bellagio is illegally employing a convicted criminal as a dealer. The criminal turns out to be inside man Frank Catton, who drags out the interview by accusing "agent" Linus of racism. Terry is so eager to get back to work after this meeting that when, on the way out, Linus claims to have left something behind in the conference room, Terry leaves Linus to show himself out -- which of course he doesn't. Meanwhile, Danny, hanging around the casino floor, angers the thugs Terry has assigned to watch him and they drag him off to a back room to be taught a lesson. The "teacher" is an even bigger thug with whom Danny has arranged a trick: the thug throws himself around the room and makes a lot of noise to convince the guys guarding the door that he's beating Danny up, while Danny exits through the duct-work to surprise Linus in an elevator on the way to the vault.

Fight Night has arrived and, with everything going according to plan, the team prepares to make the robbery. In their replica of the vault, 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, Basher cuts power across the city by triggering a "pinch" -- a bomb like device that fries circuitry with a huge electromagnetic pulse. Danny and Linus break into the vault, with help from Yen waiting inside, all unseen by the video cameras. Rusty calls Terry to reveal that he is being robbed. Incredulous, Terry goes to his security center to find that nothing is happening, until the monitors switch and show the three men in the vault packing all the money into black carry bags marked with X's. In reality, the bags are filled with fliers, not money, per the plan.

The robbers rig the "money" with explosives and split it into two parts. They threaten to blow up all the money unless Benedict lets them get away with half of it. Upon hearing this, Benedict calls 911 and asks for a S.W.A.T. team, but the team that responds, unbeknownst to Benedict, is the rest of Ocean's crew. (Livingston has hacked their phones and intercepts the 911 call.) 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 in a van, 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, because the van in which the other half of the money was taken away has also blown up.

He comes down to the vault and talks with the S.W.A.T. team on their way out. Here he discovers that both bundles of exploding money were actually just fliers advertising prostitutes. The van was a remote-controlled decoy. He realizes that somebody made a duplicate of his vault, and that he just watched the S.W.A.T. team walk out with ALL of the money.

Terry goes to confront Danny, rightly assuming that he is somehow responsible. Danny slips back into the room where he's supposedly receiving a beating just in time to meet Terry. While never admitting anything, Danny 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 furious.

Three to six months later, Tess and Danny are reunited outside of the same New Jersey prison from which Danny was released.