Ocean’s Eleven in or out?

"Are you in or out?"

That’s the ad slogan for the new Ocean’s Eleven movie and if any Hollywood star ought to be "in", it’s Ocean’s star George Clooney.

Only right now, Clooney’s not so sure. "I’m certainly in a great place, career-wise. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a better place," Clooney told Reuters in a recent interview.

Ocean’s Eleven is expected to be a major hit with a story about a group of con artists and safecrackers looking to rob three Las Vegas casinos of $160 million in one night.

Clooney plays gang leader Danny Ocean, amid a cast that includes Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia and Don Cheadle. The film was directed by Steven Soderbergh, who won a best director Oscar last year for his drug war drama Traffic. The production company Clooney owns with Soderbergh made the movie, meaning that he’s not just another pretty face in Hollywood. He’s got a brain for business, too.

By making Ocean’s Eleven, Clooney has followed the path of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr.–members of the Rat Pack–who made 1960s Ocean’s 11.

Add it all up; it spells c-o-o-l. And cool is always "in".

But Clooney is now a 40-year-old, and has some gray in his hair. That could mean a big "out" for youthful moviegoers. And recently, Pierce Brosnan became People magazine’s 2001 "Sexiest Man Alive" over former winners like Clooney.

"In or out?" Often, it’s not if you win, but how you play.

"The fun part about being where I am right now is that I’m in a position where I can get good scripts...and get good movies made," he says. "You don’t get that position for a very long time...they’ll take it away from you, you know."

Hollywood fame can be fleeting, and the nephew of singer Rosemary Clooney who found fame on TV’s ER but whose film career has seen ups and downs, knows it. It’s just that right now, he doesn’t seem to care because he’s having too much fun.

The new Ocean’s Eleven is all about fun–albeit the glamorous and good-looking movie star kind few people get to have. In that way, the new Ocean’s measures up to the old.

In 1960, Frank, Dean, Sammy, Dean Bishop, Peter Lawford and Angie Dickinson were having a heck of a good time in Vegas, laying in steam rooms by day, playing the showrooms at night and, in between, making movies. But that’s about where the similarities end. "We loved the title," Soderbergh said at a news conference when asked to distinguish between the old and new.

And what would the old pack think about that? "They would have said, You got to write something in for us," says Jerry Weintraub, a Hollywood veteran, a friend of Frank, Dean and Sammy, and producer of Ocean’s Eleven. Danny Ocean is just out of prison on parole and wearing the same crisp tuxedo he wore when nailed because, of course, prisons iron the tuxedos of convicts. But that’s okay: it looks great.

Ocean has committed a crime about which audiences are never really told. What they learn, however, is that the charismatic con man only steals insured items and still loves his ex-wife, Tess (Julia Roberts), who is now in the arms of mobbed-up businessman Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) who owns three chic casinos in Vegas.

Ocean wants Tess back, but he also needs money. The only way to get both–and it has to be in a way that is so cool that not even the coolest scam artist would dare attempt it–is to rob a vault that holds the cash of all three casinos. So, Ocean assembles a team of card sharks, scam artists, computer hackers, explosive specialists and get-away drivers led by him and his best buddy, Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt).

The key to being cool in Ocean’s is not necessarily being "in" because it seems the guys are always on the outs. "The minute you try to make it cool, you are dead," says Clooney. "All we thought was, we are going to have these guys not panic because they are the best...Bad things happen, and they just go, ‘we’ll take care of it’. That, to me, is cool." Ocean’s is clever enough that audiences never really know what went wrong, or what was really part of the con.

The film is no Oscar-winning drama from Oscar-winning director Soderbergh, starring Oscar winner Roberts. "Part of the appeal of making the movie was that it was a 180- degree turn from a film like Traffic," says Roberts.

"We had nightly prayer meetings," Pitt says about shooting in Las Vegas.

"The odds of it were amazing," says Damon about Clooney’s losing 25 hands of blackjack in a row. "Gray is good," says Clooney, smoothing the salt-and-pepper hair covering his temples.

In or out, George?

"I’m having fun, but I don’t know. In? You go in and out," he says. "It depends on whom you talk to."

Ah yes, a polite answer from the self-described "southern gentleman" who hails from Kentucky.

"It’s a con," says Clooney about his noteworthy southern charm. But he’s laughing, too, just like his favorite rat packer Dean might have laughed with Frank, Sammy and the gang.

Clooney? He’s in, man. He’s in.

(Ocean’s Eleven is a Warner Bros. film opening in Metro Manila on January 23.)