So continuing our irregular project of rewatching notable movies that I saw in the theatre back in college, but haven’t seen since, we come to this Steven Soderbergh movie. Which of course wasn’t a Soderbergh movie back when I saw it — I mean, it was, but I had never heard of the guy and had no idea who he was. This was 100% a George Clooney/Jennifer Lopez movie for me. (It also didn’t have Ving Rhames, Albert Brooks, Luis Guzmán, Don Cheadle, or Catherine Keener, as far as I knew.)

I remembered that the movie was a) good, and b) a kind of tragic, smoldering romance. Both of those things are still true, but what I’d forgotten was that it’s a funny movie, and has a lot more plot than just that romance.

Seeing it from today’s perspective, what it really seems like is a kind of Ocean’s Eleven prequel. Clooney isn’t quite playing Danny Ocean (though he’s not that far off — the movie starts with him getting out of prison, and he spends most of the movie either trying to get together with the woman he’s interested in or planning a revenge theft); but the mood is similar, the visual style is similar (though this one overuses mid-scene freeze-frame pauses), and the music is extremely similar. David Holmes is the composer on both movies, and they’re scored almost identically.

Comparing it to Ocean’s Eleven, which is one of my perfect movies, diminishes this in comparison, though, so let’s not do it. This movie is legit excellent in its own right. The Elmore Leonard story is great; Lopez’s female lead is complex and carries her half of the movie, rather than just being Clooney’s love interest; and Soderbergh is of course one of our great directors. If you missed it back then, you should make up for that now.