#reubasher

[judgeverse]

various thoughts and discoveries about basher and reuben in ocean’s 13 (while I’m thinking about it, and for the sake of anybody else who ever noticed Them and their wholesome little love story buried in a heist movie): 

there are two freezeframes where several of basher’s love letters are visible. "Dearest Reuben” is the specific one that made me go “oh THAT’S why the letters...”, but here’s everything I could get. they are amazing. https://pastebin.com/Dzf4R1pw 

��Dearest Reuben, When you want-  loving to someone,-  expressing your feeling is-   ment. When someone you-   physically support yourself-  your feet firmly-  to breathe. Thin- they are trying- When your-  you do it wha- Figure out wh- When everything-  are overwhelming-  comforting.” 

the love letters were not in the original script (they were written by basher but were never opened or read). the gay contents of them, and the plot of healing reuben through the power of love, were added later on. not sure if this was a decision made by the actors, director, or both, but the commentary track on 13 says the following (right at the danny, basher, and reuben ending fireworks scene): 

“A lot of the scenes in this movie we’d had to rewrite many times, but that ending, that came easily. Seeing who those guys were, and getting to find a way to let them express their hearts, was really exciting, and that was a moment where the actors and Steven just completely elevated what we’d been thinking of.”

more info bits under the cut - 

this is very blink-and-miss-it and a YMMV type of thing, but I think there may be an implication basher is gay; linus is uncomfortable with buying him the “mags” (and equally uncomfortable with reading the gay letters out loud), but linus later mentions to the group that he’d learned something in maxim magazine, which he’s fine with reading, bringing up, and discussing (albeit awkwardly). QED, whatever basher wanted him to buy was not that, and my guess is something gay, probably, based on linus’s reaction to the letters also

based on actor heights, basher is 5’8’’ and reuben is 6’3’’. this is important information. 

reuben is not in his 70s omg i saw at least one post in the tag somewhere implying this but no!! based on actor ages, in oceans 11, reuben is early 60s and basher is late 30s. definitely an age difference but hey. basher can set his goals wherever he wants to

basher wrote him at least 13 letters in total, based on counting the envelopes (cinematic parallels!)   

reuben’s mentioned as having an ex wife, which, provided he’s being honest to bank about that, would seem to contrast with the earlier statement that he doesn’t have any family to support him. presumably that wasn’t an amicable divorce (and, I’d guess, probably happened a while ago) and I have a hard time seeing him or basher as anything other than very gay, but it’s an interesting little bit of material for their story, especially in light of reuben not being immune to pressure to conform to others 

this is just a throwaway line from ocean’s 12, but they have a little dialogue piece talking about lifting buildings, where reuben’s like “they did it with the leaning tower of pisa” (which he pronounces pizza lol) and basher’s like “yeah, but it took them 300 men over 2 years to do it” and i just love them both having obscure and specific knowledge, on top of being super smart in their areas

also from ocean’s 12: they’re sitting next to each other in the very last scene with the party! it’s so hard to notice because the scene goes by so fast, but they are. I’ve spent a lot of time wondering how they arrived at the point of Being In Love that they’re at in 13, so that was fun to notice, even if probably not intentional foreshadowing 

two out of the three scripts (ocean's 11 and ocean's 12) had bad scenes completely cut that would've made reuben not be as gay as he is. not sure who vetoed them, but i’m thankful. (the drafts of the scripts are a painful read; I strongly recommend not reading 12 or 13. 11 is okay for the most part.)

that’s all. if you have anything else about them, please add. I crave the knowledge