Rusty Ryan (character)

Robert Charles "Rusty" Ryan is a fictional character in Ocean's Eleven and its sequels, Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen. The films are based on the original Ocean's Eleven with the Rat Pack, though Rusty does not appear in it. He is portrayed by Brad Pitt.

Personality
Rusty is a handsome, soft-spoken man who could best be described as cool. Rusty dresses with the same attention to style as Danny, with the only difference being Rusty's tastes being less sedate and slightly more colorful than Danny. He is skilled in many areas, often revealing (as a running joke) an unexpected knowledge of science, technology and engineering when conversing with the more technical members of the Eleven. Like Danny, he is a seasoned gambler and connected well enough within the criminal world to know where to recruit talent. He is also a talented actor, assuming disguise as the need calls for it. He also demonstrated fluency in Mandarin as far back as the first film.

Rusty is Danny Ocean's adviser, best friend, and the voice of reason throughout the trilogy. His versatility and intelligence make him the logical right hand man to Danny for the complex heists the group engage in throughout the series. He and Danny are close enough that they often don't have to complete their own sentences as one seems to know what the other is thinking or going to say. Rusty and Danny are the only two characters of the Eleven shown confiding in each other intimate details of their lives (not counting the constant arguments of Virgil and Turk). Rusty is the closest match to Danny's cool-headed demeanor of any of the members of the Eleven.

Ironically, Rusty's logic does not appear to extend to how he manages his own business affairs, as he loses money more than he earns on his hotels (Ocean's Twelve) and has to resort to participating in small heists to support them (Ocean's Thirteen).

One quirk specific to Rusty is his eating habits. He is always seen eating something in every scene of the first film, and in many of his scenes in the subsequent films, although he rarely finishes what he is eating.

Before Ocean's Eleven
Little is known about Rusty before Ocean's Eleven, but small references appear frequently throughout the trilogy. He reveals in in the first movie that he was once in a relationship with Isabel Lahiri, serious enough that he still has a tattoo he got at her request. In the third, it is revealed that he has known Reuben for many years, and that when he was starting out and getting ripped off in a card game, Reuben saved him and bought him breakfast that morning.

In Ocean's Twelve, Isabel also mentions that Rusty and Frank pulled off "the Bulgari job" shortly before Rusty ran out on her, and that "she knew it was him."

Rusty is also strong friends with Danny, and has known him for many years, both reminiscing what Las Vegas used to be like before The Bank's grand opening in Ocean's Thirteen.

Ocean's Eleven
When introduced in Ocean's Eleven, Rusty is teaching movie stars how to play poker for cash with little success, describing it as "the longest hour of my life." Upon meeting with Danny, Rusty joins him in his plan to rob the casinos owned by Terry Benedict. He recruits eight professionals for the job, but Danny realizes Rusty wants one more for the job even though Rusty doesn't say anything.

Rusty quickly learns, however, that Danny doesn't just want to "beat the house" but beat the man, Terry Benedict, who has taken his wife after she broke up with him. He responds by informing Danny that he will have to sit out the heist, because he would be a security risk due to his criminal record and past with Tess if he set foot in the casino. However, while carrying out the robbery, he is surprised to learn that Danny has gone against his order to help him.

After the job is successfully executed, earning them $160 million, Rusty and Tess pick up Danny from jail, after the latter is incarcerated for six months for breaking his bail conditions to perform the Benedict job. Rusty jokes he spent all his money on his suit he is wearing and, as a result, is driving an 1964 Ford Falcon convertible.

Ocean's Twelve
Prior to the events of the Ocean series we learn that Rusty was in a relationship with Isabel Lahiri. During the relationship, the two started to live together with Rusty getting a tattoo at her behest. He later confesses to Danny that he looked into getting it removed, but the Doctor didn't recommend due to its location. During his relationship with Isabel, he participates in a job in Rome (where they were living) which Isabel investigated, as she was an Europol officer. As a result of her becoming increasingly close to catching the criminals, he is forced to leave her and flee.

At the beginning of the events of the second movie Rusty is managing a series of his own hotels which he has bankrolled with his take from the Benedict heist.

However after this, Francois "The Night Fox" Toulour, eager to prove himself a better thief than Ocean's Eleven, reveals the location of the Eleven to Benedict. Rusty and the rest of the group are forced into paying off their shares from the job to Benedict, plus interest. When asked how much he has spent, Rusty admits that not only has he spent all of it, but he is, in fact, deeply in debt over his hotels.

This leads the group to go to Europe and eventually meet Toulour where he challenges them to both try and rob the same target. If they succeed, Toulour promises to pay their debt to Benedict for them. The gang deliberately gets captured after switching the target, the Coronation Egg, thus leading Toulour to believe that he has won. Once Toulour discovers he has stolen a fake Coronation Egg and that he's lost, he pays back the debt. Rusty reunites Isabel with her Father, the master thief Gaspar LeMarque. At the very end of the film, Rusty and Isabel are back together again as a couple.

Ocean's Thirteen
After the events of Ocean's Twelve, Rusty is still running a hotel, though Reuben says that he is still pulling jobs to keep it running. This is proven at the start of Ocean's Thirteen where he is seen beginning to crack a vault in an establishment adjacent to a toy store with a few unidentified associates who had tunneled through the wall. However, as soon as he begins to work on the vault, he receives a phone call informing him that Reuben is in trouble and he instantly abandons the job.

He is saddened to hear that Reuben has had a heart attack after being ripped off by Willie Bank, and visits Reuben in the hospital along with the other members of the gang. The others want to kill Bank for what he has done to Reuben, but Rusty sides with Danny in first warning Bank to compensate Reuben (giving Bank a Billie Martin). Bank refuses, and the gang unanimously agree to bring Bank down by ruining the grand opening of The Bank casino and hotel.

Rusty serves as Danny's adviser as he did on the previous heists. He plays a scientist who meets with Bank and successfully plants a camera in plain sight in Bank's office disguised as a seismograph. Later, he assists Danny in contaminating the villa that will be occupied by the Five Diamond Award reviewer. Rusty also prepares a rigged progressive slot machine to pay out over $30 million (called a Susan B. Anthony) as part of the scheme to start the losing streak. Before the critical minutes leading up to the breaking of the casino, Rusty escorts a now recovered Reuben into the casino to participate in the job.

This time, with the help of Benedict and Roman Nagel, the gang takes out Bank's security system and lock him in the casino's control room, shutting down the security computer. Between the time of the computer shutting-down and rebooting, the Eleven have rigged all the games so that everyone wins because it didn't matter who would win as long as the casino loses (also referred to as "a reverse big store"). During the critical three minutes twenty seconds that it takes for the security system to reboot, Rusty plays craps, betting on "snake eyes" and leading the winning streak at the table with Danny. Virgil and Turk then simulate an earthquake with a giant drill to get everyone to leave the casino before they can start losing it again. The first jolt is not strong enough to dissuade the excited patrons, so Rusty tells Virgil and Turk to "hit 'em harder." This time, the patrons flee and follow the evacuation plan, removing all hopes for Bank to recoup his losses. Having lost $500 million, Bank is ruined.

As Linus, Danny and Rusty part company at the airport, Rusty advises Danny to "keep the weight off this time," while Danny advises Rusty he should "settle down and have a couple of kids." Rusty doesn't answer. This exchange is an "in" joke about the real-life actors Clooney and Pitt wherein Clooney had gained weight between Ocean's 12 and 13 for his role in the film Syriana as well as Pitt's subsequent marriage to Angelina Jolie and their adopted children. Rusty proceeds to set up the final Susan B. Anthony for the beleaguered Five Diamond Award reviewer, who wins $11 million as Rusty smiles and walks away.

Production
Producer Jerry Weintraub said of the casting that "Brad Pitt is perfect as Rusty…He's not only a cool guy, he has that devil-may-care attitude that Rusty has." For Ocean's Thirteen, Weintraub noted, "'People liked the disguises from the first movie, so we decided to bring them back...Brad figured out this costume and the long hair.' He's posing as a scientist who specializes in earthquakes."