Ocean's Thirteen
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 2 hours, 2 minutes
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Starring:
George Clooney - Danny Ocean
Brad Pitt - Rusty Ryan
Matt Damon - Linus Caldwell / Lenny Pepperidge
Elliott Gould - Reuben Tishkoff
Bernie Mac - Frank Catton
Don Cheadle - Basher Tarr / Fender Roads
Casey Affleck - Virgil Malloy
Eddie Jemison - Livingston Dell
Scott Caan - Turk Malloy
Shaobo Qin - Yen / Mr. Weng
Carl Reiner - Saul Bloom / Kensington Chapp
Andy Garcia - Terry Benedict
Ellen Barkin - Abigail Sponder
Al Pacino - Willie Bank
Be careful what you wish for.
While Ocean’s Eleven was almost universally loved for its tight plotting, charming performances, and easy-going, sexy style, it’s follow up of Ocean’s Twelve was seen by most as a disappointment. Gone was flashy Las Vegas, replaced with drab Europe. Everyone was back, but not at the same time and they weren’t in control but rather forced into the situation by a vengeful Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) and forced to compete with master criminal the Nightfox (Vincent Cassel). And when Julia Roberts returned to play a character who looked like Julia Roberts as part of a con involving a resemblance to major motion picture star Julia Roberts, most audience members just scoffed at this breaking of the fourth-wall.
Ocean’s Thirteen is a return to everything that works from the first two films and yet it never brings anything of its own to the table. When Willie Bank (Al Pacino) betrays our beloved Reuben Tiskoff (Elliot Gould), leaving him borderline destitute and in a coma, the other ten members of Ocean’s Eleven decide that it’s time for some payback, and since Bank loves money so much, they’re going to put an emphasis on the “pay”. Thus begins the series most elaborate plan to rig every casino game in Bank’s luxurious new hotel/casino so that Bank will lose $500 million on his big opening night. He’ll be humiliated and it doesn’t matter if our guys win as long as Bank loses big.
There should be little reason to complain. Everything you loved from Eleven and Twelve is back. The film is almost a love letter to the city of Las Vegas. The non-sequiters Pitt and Clooney had in Twelve make a glorious return so that even though there’s no Roberts or Catherine Zeta-Jones, you feel like the strongest love story has always been between these two guys anyway. Furthermore, cast members like Casey Affleck and Don Cheadle, who never really got much of a chance to shine in the previous films, get some of the best scenes. While the group rarely shares the screen in the same scene, they always feel like a team (as opposed to Twelve where Bernie Mac spent most of the film in jail and Carl Reiner spent most of the film at home). The con is bigger, the villain is badder, but Ocean’s Thirteen, while ultimately entertaining, also feels bloated and barren.
Say what you will about Ocean’s Twelve (and there’s plenty to say), but it’s a film that decides to play by its own rules. Some saw this as overly self-indulgent, but if that was the case, then by contrast, Ocean’s Thirteen is over-indulging the audience by giving them everything they want in the form of a soulless sequel. It’s just hard to see the film’s gaping hole where a heart should be when its been obscured by the massive amounts of charm and personality of its winning cast.
Ocean’s Thirteen delivers everything I wanted from Ocean’s Twelve, but in doing so, a series that has always matched the spirit of its rogue protagonists, has finally cashed-in its chips and sold out. Sure, it may be rich, but it’s not quite as happy.
Words by
Matt Goldberg
6.8.07