Imagine the high-glitz criminal world of Ocean's Eleven turned on its head and dumped in the grimy Cleveland suburb of Collinwood.

There's a confident gang planning a heist... but they're anything but high-gloss mastermind Danny Ocean and his hand-picked band of professionals.

The target isn't a hi-tech subterranean casino vault beneath the glittering Las Vegas strip... it's a pre-war safe on the second floor of a grubby pawnbrokers.

Flopped amateur boxer Pero (Rockwell) is the self-styled kingpin leading a posse that includes frustrated artist Riley (Macy) and redundant serial small-time crook Toto (Michael Jeter).

They're not the most able of henchmen - single dad Riley always has his baby on his hands while he works out how get $1,000 to spring his wife from jail.

Toto is hardly aware of what day it is and suspiciously fires off questions like: "How did you know I was here?" only to be met with "Because you live here. "

Joining them are the slickly desperate Leon (Isaiah Washington) and half-hearted Italian gigolo Basil (Andrew Davoli).

Also mixed up in the plot are Rosalind (Patricia Clarkson), whose petty thief boyfriend Cosimo (Guzman) discovered the dream job - or "Bellini" as local parlance has it.

First-time writers Joe and Anthony Russo have come up with a genuinely appealing comedy that neatly pulls off the trick of balancing belief and desperation.

Clooney, who played the smooth heistmeister in Ocean's Eleven, couldn't be further from that role as a wheelchair-bound veteran safecracker with paranoid leanings.

It's a small film... but it packs a big punch, with fully-rounded characters, delightful plot quirks and a general air of hapless optimism that is anything but justified.

Director Soderbergh and his leading man Clooney should be proud of what they have created... an Ocean's Eleven for the dispossessed.

Tim Evans