Elliott Gould credited as playing...
Reuben Tishkoff
- Reuben: [to Rusty and Danny present during lunch at Ruben's home] You guys are pros. The best. I'm sure you can make it out of the casino. Of course, lest we forget, once you're out the front door, you're still in the middle of the fucking desert!
- Reuben: [as Danny and Rusty are leaving Reuben's house after lunch] Give Dominic your addresses, I got some remaindered furniture I want to send you. Look, just out of curiosity, which three casinos did you geniuses decide to rob?
- Rusty: The Bellagio...
- Danny: The Bellagio, the Mirage, and the MGM Grand.
- Reuben: [drops his fork] Those are Terry Benedict's casinos.
- Danny: Is that right?
- Rusty: That's right.
- Reuben: You guys, what do you got against Terry Benedict?
- Rusty: What do you have against him, that's the question?
- Reuben: He torpedoed my casino, muscled me out. Now he's gonna blow it up next week to make way for some gaudy monstrosity. Don't think I don't know what you're doing.
- Rusty: What are we doing, Reuben?
- Reuben: If you're gonna steal from Terry Benedict, you'd better goddamn *know*. This sort of thing used to be civilized. You'd hit a guy, he'd whack you, done. But with Benedict... at the end of this, he'd *better* not know you're involved, not know your names or think you're dead, because he'll kill ya, and *then* he'll go to work on ya.
- Danny: That's why we're going to have to be very careful. Very precise.
- Rusty: Mmm, well-funded.
- Reuben: Yeah. Ya gotta be *nuts*, too. And you're gonna need a crew as *nuts* as you are!
- [pause]
- Reuben: So who've you got in mind?
- Reuben: [seeing the entire gang show up at his door all at once] What? Did you guys get a group rate or something?
- Reuben: [to Rusty and Danny during lunch] I know more about casino security than any man alive, I invented it, and it cannot be beaten. They got cameras, they got locks, they got watchers, they got timers, they got vaults, they got enough armed personnel to occupy Paris!
- [pause]
- Reuben: Okay, bad example.
- Danny: [during lunch with Reuben with Rusty present] It's never been tried.
- Reuben: Ho, ho... "It's never been tried." It's been tried. A few guys even came close. You know the three most successful robberies in the history of Vegas?
- [flashback - the gaming room at the Horseshow, in black-and-white]
- Reuben: [voiceover] Number three, the Bronze Medal - pencil-neck grabs a lockbox at the Horseshoe...
- [a man grabs a lockbox out of a guard's hand and runs for the door, and six guards instantly tackle him to the floor]
- Reuben: He got two steps closer to the door than any living soul before him.
- [cut to the present]
- Reuben: Second most successful robbery...
- [flashback - the gaming room at the Flamingo, in grainy color. A long-haired man is running for the door, clutching a bag]
- Reuben: The Flamingo in '71. This guy actually tasted fresh oxygen before they grabbed him.
- [the man gets within a few feet of the door, before a guard smashes him across the face with a nightstick]
- Reuben: Of course, he was breathing out of a hose for the next three weeks. Goddamn hippy.
- [back to the present]
- Reuben: And the *closest* any man has ever come to robbing a Las Vegas casino...
- [flashback - outside Caesar's Palace, in color. A man runs out, hunched over an armful of cash, followed by three security guards]
- Reuben: Was outside of Caesar's in '87. He came, he grabbed...
- [the three guards shoot the thief in the back]
- Reuben: [security guards shot the robbers as they tried to run away with the stolen money] They conquered.
- Basher: That poxy demo crew hasn't used a coaxial to batten the main line, have they? They've only naused up the mainframe couplet, naused it right up!
- Reuben: [to Livingston] Do you understand any of this?
- Livingston: I'll explain later.