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Ocean’s Thirteen Reviewed by Rich Drees
As opposed to the last two Ocean’s films, Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his gang aren’t pulling a heist for their own gain, but for revenge for one of their own. Danny’s mentor Rueben (Elliott Gould) had been swindled out of his half of a brand new casino by Willy Bank (a surprisingly restrained Al Pacino), with the shock of the double cross nearly knocking him comatose. With Rusty (Brad Pitt), Linus (Matt Damon), Saul (Carl Reiner), Basher (Don Cheadle) and the rest, Danny hatches a plan to make every game in Bank’s new casino pay out to the customers on the casino’s opening night, losing millions for Bank.
Of course, complications arise, but nothing that can’t be dealt with
almost casual aplomb and perhaps a bit of high tech gadgetry. (Where
does one get such devices anyway? Heists-R-Us?) Add in a couple of
double and triple crosses as well as a surprise appearance or two
from characters from the previous two Ocean’s adventures and
you have a film that stands out as one of the better ones to hit the
Cineplex screens this summer.
Being a story about a scam being run on a Vegas casino, there are payoffs aplenty, both for the characters and the audience. As expected, the performances here are breezy and underplayed without being thrown away. There’s also a stronger sense of their camaraderie among the members of Danny crew and even the second string players get moments to shine. Newcomer to the series, comic actor David Paymer delivers a fine and funny turn as a hotel critic who gets caught up in the group’s machinations.
Director Soderbergh feels as if he’s having more fun here than on the last Ocean’s picture. He keeps his camera moving fluidly, whether through the interaction of the principals or in sweeping expansive shots of the Vegas strip with the gang’s target casino flawlessly added through computer generated imagery. During the commission of the job in the film’s third act, he starts using multiple images a la one of the granddaddies of heist movies, 1968‘s The Thomas Crowne Affair. Still, Soderbergh knows when to slow things down, such as when the film takes a moment to acknowledge and pay tribute to the original Rat Pack era of Las Vegas that inspired this new trilogy of films. |
It’s not often that a film franchise stumbles and then recovers its
footing. So it comes as a double pleasure in a summer movie season
that has already seen three “Part Three” franchise installments that
have disappointed, that Ocean’s Thirteen, the third
installment in writer/director Steven Soderbergh’s retro Rat Pack
redo series, is a marked improvement over its immediate predecessor
and an entertaining film in its own right.