Daniel Ocean of Ocean's 11 (2001) is not the first name people would think of when they are asked to list heroic characters.\u00a0 Atticus Finch and James Bond come much more readily.\u00a0 Even as I am writing this, I know he pales in comparison to these giants of fiction, but he still has heroic attributes.<\/p>\n
The first scene of the movie shows Ocean being interviewed for early release from a Southern New Jersey prison and it is revealed that he is a thief and con artist.\u00a0 Yes, the hero starts his journey in handcuffs, but upon release from jail he is able to begin.\u00a0 Like anyone just released from prison would, he goes to a casino in Atlantic City, has a drink, and begins his journey assembling a team.\u00a0 To do what you ask?\u00a0 Rob the three biggest casinos in Vegas.\u00a0 Yes, more illegal activities for our hero, making my case harder and harder, but he crosses the first threshold of his journey by recruiting his right-hand man, Rusty.<\/p>\n
Upon building his team of 11 men with various talents, his basic plan of breaking into the Bellagio vault is revealed to the group.\u00a0 Everyone thinks he is crazy, but they stick with it.\u00a0 This is a tribute to Ocean's ability to be a leader.\u00a0 He has the charisma, intelligence, and possesses great skills as a conman to be the one to lead this team of 11 into the most insane robbery of all-time.\u00a0 Ocean has his work cut out for him as he now finds himself in quite the belly of quite a whale.<\/p>\n
Now the research begins.\u00a0 Ocean and crew begin casing the casino, learning all of habits of a very punctual and ruthless Terry Benedict.\u00a0 During this reconnaissance, Rusty learns that Benedict's girlfriend is Ocean's ex-wife, Tess.\u00a0 Rusty confronts Ocean and Danny admits that the heist is not all<\/em> about Tess and mysteriously hints that he will not be the one choosing between her and the $150 million.\u00a0 Upon hearing this, it certainly seems that there is a temptress in the form of an ex-wife who may distract Ocean from doing his job.<\/p>\n It actually does as Ocean is red-flagged by the casino.\u00a0 Now every security officer knows his face and he will not be able to perform his original duties.\u00a0 This is where we get to see Ocean as a mentor.\u00a0 Throughout the movie, Ocean has been mentoring Linus, the son of another famous conman, by giving him smaller tasks to complete telling him "you've gotta crawl before you walk, kid".\u00a0 Linus actually steps into Ocean's role here and performs quite admirably when the con begins.<\/p>\n The initial con goes successfully and once Benedict learns of his loss he goes straight to Ocean.\u00a0 Tess is secretly watching the exchange between the two men and Ocean offers Benedict a deal, he gives up Tess and Ocean will "look into" who robbed him.\u00a0 Benedict accepts and Tess runs out of her room to see Ocean before he is taking away to jail for violating his parole.At this moment, it becomes clear that Ocean's primary plan was to steal Tess back.\u00a0 This noble goal was achieved in a relatively odd way, but shows that Ocean is a heroic figure in doing all of this to get his wife back.\u00a0 The crew has their money and Ocean has Tess, proving that sometimes, you can have both.<\/p>\n Ocean's journey has elements of what Joseph Campbell believes to be the arc of a hero.\u00a0 While his journey is an illegal one, his intentions of getting his wife back were morally right.\u00a0 He also serves as Linus's mentor during the movie and sequels, showing himself to be a caring and nurturing person, certainly aspects of a hero.\u00a0 The greatest evidence I have for Daniel Ocean being a hero probably rests in Frank Sinatra and George Clooney.\u00a0 If a character is played by these two legends of cinema, he is certainly a hero in many eyes. Daniel Ocean of Ocean's 11 (2001) is not the first name people would think of when they are asked to list heroic characters.\u00a0 Atticus Finch and James Bond come much more readily.\u00a0 Even as I am writing this, I know he pales in comparison to these giants of fiction, but he still has heroic attributes. … Continue reading Daniel Ocean: a heroic thief with a just cause<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1347,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogroll"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/psyc449\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/psyc449\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/psyc449\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/psyc449\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1347"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/psyc449\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/psyc449\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/psyc449\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/psyc449\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/psyc449\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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