Basher (Don Cheadle) has a grating cockney accent

His enigmatic charm wins them over and they let him free to hook up with his old partner in crime Rusty Ryan, the sharpest card in town played with typically arrogant panache by Pitt.

Less than a day into his parole, Ocean puts a crazy idea to Ryan - a plan for a $150m (�105m) Las Vegas casino heist so audacious and implausible that it cannot possibly work. Or so the theory goes.

Soderbergh has updated the 1960 Rat Pack original and tweaked it wherever he thought it necessary - with many critics saying that this version has turned out better than the black-and-white caper.

The director has also put together his team of actors with as much loving precision as Ocean puts together his on-screen team of con artists, pick-pockets and bomb experts.

Ocean's gang members are supposed to be the best, smartest and most eccentric crooks that the United States criminal world has to offer, and they set to work on breaking into the vaults of three casinos at once.

Ocean cannot live without ex-wife Tess (Julia Roberts)

Most members of the heist crew are highly enjoyable, including the elderly fraudster Saul played by Carl Reiner, the bickering brothers Turk and Virgil (Scott Caan and Casey Affleck), and the wonderfully camp Mr Big who is bankrolling the job, Reuben Tishkoff (Elliot Gould).

One character spoils the good work, though - Don Cheadle plays the excruciatingly grating "cockney" explosives expert Basher, who has the most over-egged English accent since Daphne on Frasier.

Expect a groan to go up in the cinema when he gets to the line about the gang being in "barney". It is supposed to be Cockney rhyming slang. I will not spoil the fun.

Clooney himself may not be Sinatra, but he proves that he can hold his own on the big screen, while Andy Garcia is menacingly fabulous as his nemesis, the Godfather-like casino mogul Terry Benedict.

Another twist to the story is that Ocean cannot live without his ex-wife, Tess, played by Julia Roberts - who got together with Benedict while Ocean was in prison.

It is a hugely enjoyable comedy with action, suspense and a love story thrown in - even if a horribly Hollywood ending may leave a sour taste.

Ocean's 11 is released on 14 February