Ocean’s 8

By: Dustin Bradley

Why should the boys get to have all the fun? Well not anymore. Ocean’s 8 has finally hit theaters this weekend. The all-female heist movie, a spin-off of the popular Ocean’s trilogy starring George Clooney, Matt Damon and various others, shows us that the crime game is not just a boy’s club anymore. The film stars Sandra Bullock as Danny Ocean’s (George Clooney) younger estranged sister Debbie, who after being released from prison decides to gather up a group of seven ladies to pull of the biggest jewelry heist ever. Bullock takes up the title role, alongside Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Sarah Paulson, Mindy Kaling, Awkwafina, Helena Bonham Carter and Rihanna. (Yes, the one and only Rihanna.)

“Five years, eight months, twelve days and counting” — that’s how long Debbie Ocean (Bullock) has been devising the biggest heist of her life. She knows what it’s going to take — a team of the best people in the field, starting with her partner-in-crime Lou Miller (Blanchett). Together, they recruit a crew of specialists including jeweler Amita (Kaling), street con Constance (Awkwafina), suburban mom Tammy (Paulson), hacker Nine Ball (Rihanna) and fashion designer Rose (Bonham Carter). Their target is a necklace that’s worth more than $150 million on the neck of socialite and actress Daphne Kluger (Hathaway) at the annual Met Gala.

This movie, in my opinion, was fantastic! The cast melded together as wonderfully as you could have imagined. Bullock, Blanchett and Hathaway were very much the strongest players in the game. That isn’t to say that the other ladies get the short stick, but in a movie with eight very strong women and topping out at only an hour and fifty minutes it’s completely understandable that we could have been given more of most of the ladies due to pacing and plot. I found the writing to be very strong in almost every area. They gave me the perfect mix of comedy and heist drama.

Director and writer Gary Ross (Director of The Hunger Games) managed to infuse just enough callbacks to the original trilogy that it wasn’t hard for a newcomer like me to understand. (Even though now I’m most definitely gonna check out the starter three films.) The last half of second act was completely foreseeable, but it gave me a lot of material I didn’t know I wanted and all of the third was a complete and welcomed surprise!

The feminine energy and power of this film made me squeal with happiness and smile the whole time! Only two men had anything of significance in the film and even then they were very much small roles.

My only issue with Ocean’s 8 was the complete “hide your lesbians” trope that was used for Bullock and Blanchett’s characters. Lou is clearly a lesbian in the film and it is suggested that Debbie is bisexual and has a romantic past with Lou. According to multiple sources, the creative team definitely had this in mind and had it as more of a subplot, but the studio urged them to take it out. The film is still very queer and will definitely have lesbians and gay men as a major demographic so why did the studio feel the need to take away and diminish the queerness of these characters (especially since it’s released at the start of Pride Month)? If you are queer or even just a smart moviegover, you will still see glimpses of what the creative team left in that are suggestive but not canon. Hopefully, if we get a sequel(s), then we can petition against hiding the true sexualities of these characters.

Overall, Ocean’s 8 was a really fun experience to see in theaters! I highly recommend it and give it four out five stars. We need to support this film while it is in theaters so that we show Hollywood that all-female casts are not only profitable but wanted. Plus, it would get us closer to having this be the first of a whole new Ocean’s filmography that I think we all deserve and need!