We discussed what Ocean’s Eleven gets right, what it gets hilariously wrong, and how casino security has evolved over the past 20 years.

Instead, I spoke with a handful of security experts who previously worked for mega casinos but are now independent contractors.

Not surprisingly, they ignored me and politely declined, respectively. In commemoration of the film’s 20th anniversary, I reached out to press handlers for the Bellagio and Caesars Palace and asked them to put me in touch with their in-house security experts. Pulling an actual job like that back then wouldn’t have been possible for a whole host of reasons-and it would be even more difficult today, given the advancement of the very preventive measures Reuben wisely warned about. It still holds up as an ensemble thief comedy, though two decades later we still have to suspend our disbelief in order to buy that Danny and the gang could execute such a complicated caper in the first place. It’s been 20 years since Ocean’s Eleven first hit theaters. Happily for us, Danny and Rusty ignore Reuben’s cautionary tales and even conscript him into their crimes, thereby setting up one hell of a heist movie (and several others that would follow as the franchise expanded). Knocking over a casino-let alone three-is no easy task despite the appeal of the idea. Not to mention, as he concludes, even if you get past all the security measures and somehow make it out of the casino alive with the money, “you’re still in the middle of the goddamn dessert.” OK, that last part, as Reuben stipulates, is a bad example. They got enough armed personnel to occupy Paris!” They got cameras, they got watchers, they got locks, they got timers, they got vaults. “I know more about casino security than any man alive,” Reuben explains, silk robe open and chest hair on full display.

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