It's been more than 40 years since the original Danny Ocean (Frank Sinatra) put together his team of 11 heist-meisters and hit Las Vegas.

In those louche, far-off days, his team of paratroopers-turned-playboys got the gig because of their well-honed armoury of special skills.

Dean Martin liked a drink (and then another one); Sammy D could hoof it with the best of them; and Peter Lawford was such a consummate lounge lizard he almost had scales.

What resulted was pretty unpleasant - a misogynistic robbery caper with Ol' Blue Eyes and his pals playing for themselves without much thought for the audience.

Fast-forward into the new millennium, and director Steven Soderbergh has grasped this unpromising material and fashioned an excellent remake out of it.

The cynicism of the original has been replaced by a deft touch and wisecracking humour that's as light as Sammy D was on his feet.

George Clooney takes Sinatra's role as the gang chief fresh out of the slammer who plucks his team of ace robbers with the help of card-sharp Russ 'Rusty' Ryan (Brad Pitt).

Among them is pickpocket par excellence Linus Cauldwell (Matt Damon) and 'Cockney' explosives expert Don Cheadle, spouting rhyming slang a Pearly King would have drawn the line at.

Also lending their skills are a Chinese circus acrobat who can apparently cram himself into a baked bean can and comedy value drivers Casey Affleck and Virgil Molloy.

Ocean's target is the central vault for three of the biggest casinos...but it's 200ft beneath the Las Vegas strip and protected by state-of-the-art security.

The time he has in mind is when the safe is stuffed to the gills with $150m in greenbacks - the night of the Lennox fight at the MGM Grand.

Oh, and to make things interesting, Ocean's ex-wife Tess (Julia Roberts) has hooked up with the boss of the target casinos Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia).

The plot options open to heist movies nowadays are pretty limited but Soderbergh succeeds in making an old theme look fresh.

There's little use of guns, no body parts flying everywhere...just a plot that stays the right side of convoluted, dialogue that's both witty and urbane and neatly-drawn characters that never stray into cartoons.

It's fast-moving, sharp and sassy and draws apparently ego-less performances from a veritable constellation of stars.

Ocean's a breeze.

Tim Evans