Andy Garcia makes courtesy threatening, and we rate the precision with which he does it. His Terry Benedict is a large part of why Ocean's Eleven works, though such parts can give him little else to play.
Fi1m perspective
In Ocean's Twelve (2004), Terry Benedict arrives unannounced at the thieves' front doors and politely demands his money back, with interest. Garcia repeats the courtesy from visit to visit without raising his voice; Benedict is quite certain that nobody has a choice. We grinned through the sequence because that unvarying manner makes each new demand funnier. Editor Stephen Mirrione turns the visits into a brisk roll-call, while composer David Holmes supplies organ, brass and a walking bass. Garcia gives them a performance whose timing needs no extra emphasis.
Crime films have made frequent use of his intensity, from his breakthrough as George Stone in The Untouchables (1987) to Vincent Mancini in The Godfather Part III (1990). Supporting work through the 1990s led to a particularly useful place in Steven Soderbergh's ensemble for Ocean's Eleven (2001). As Benedict, Garcia makes competence worrying: the casino owner is cold, observant and good enough at his job that we expect him to notice anything the crew tries. He gives the crew someone worth outwitting, without having to make the villain foolish or vain.
These parts can also leave him with little beyond professional certainty to play. We recommend Ocean's Eleven for the pleasure of the robbery, not for anything it uncovers about Benedict. The sequels give that reservation more weight: Ocean's Twelve loses its story after the introductions, while Ocean's Thirteen (2007) is pleasant and quickly forgotten. Garcia is still doing the work in Twelve while much of the company appears happy simply to turn up; he cannot provide the missing story himself.
There is more to his choice of work than these roles suggest. He produced and starred as Arturo Sandoval in For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story (2000), and made his directing debut with The Lost City (2005). Those projects draw on his Cuban heritage, something his mainstream roles have often left little room for. Start with Ocean's Eleven, where the people planning the robbery have been given a proper reason to worry.
