In my previous post, I complained how easy it is to confuse movies and reality, pointing to Ocean’s 11 as an example of a film that shows how easy it is to pull off a complex heist. In reality, they almost never go this smoothly–loose ends abound, synchronized watches break down, and people get arrested or shot.
One of my readers pointed out something interesting, however. I was referencing the updated Ocean’s 11, starring George Clooney and directed by Steven Soderbergh. My reader noted that the original Ocean’s 11, starring Frank, Dean, Sammy and the rest of the gang, doesn’t end so happily. Indeed, the money, quite literally, “goes up in smoke.” So score a point for the Rat Pack!
The more I thought about it, however, it made a certain cinematic sense. In that earlier movie, Frank’s criminal gang were all veterans of World War II. Maybe those characters had learned something about war’s default setting: SNAFU.
