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Once More, With Feeling
By bukkhead | July 16, 2007
FILM REVIEW: ‘OCEAN’S 13’
Written by Brian Koppelman and David Levien
Directed by Steven Soderberghr
Rated PG-13
122 mins.
Watching Ocean’s 13 and following along requires having seen the prequels, which is too bad, because it would have been a better film if didn’t require such foreknowledge. In Ocean’s 11, the audience was as much a sucker as Terry Benedict, maybe more so, because the twists go even beyond the extra knowledge we have over his character. The same was more or less true in Ocean’s 12, but we were expecting it. In Ocean’s 13, we’re not just expecting it, we’re anticipating it, trying to guess at it. They say you can’t cheat an honest man… 11 and 12 made us too honest to be fooled again.
Which is too bad, because 13 ends up being just a watered down version of 11. The first movie involved millions of dollars being spent in order to steal hundreds of millions. In 13, the only major money invested is for a few chunnel-digging drills. The glitz and glamor of 11, exchanged for savoir-faire and sophistication in 12, has been bought back from the pawn shop, a little worse for the wear.
This, despite best efforts to make Ocean’s 13 even more Vegasy. Willy Bank (“You shook Sinatra’s hand,”) double crosses Reuben Tishkoff and builds the biggest, most luxurious hotel-casino on the strip to date. (Expert CGI has it towering over nearby Paris and distant Stratosphere.) So Danny Ocean et al decide to get revenge, and this time they’re going to do it on the casino floor.
By now, we expect Director Sodenbergh to provide us with a rich, multi-textured plot, and certainly he delivers. Due credit goes to the writers, who for the first time are creating the material themselves: you will recall that Ocean’s 11 was a remake of the 1960 classic, and Ocean’s 12 was itself based on a script for another movie that never got made. Actually, it might be that the writers had to develop a plot as well as maintain consistency with the characters that make this merely the third movie in a trilogy, and not a stand alone film in it’s own right.
But the movie is fun, and doesn’t take itself too seriously. Sub plots that might have been thrown in just to add to the tension make for amusing distractions, and the actors are clearly enjoying themselves. Look for Ellen Barkin and Matt Damon’s playful encounters, Bernie Mac mugging for the camera, and for me, a real treat, Bob “Super Dave Osborne” Einstein. Al Pacino does his usually excellent job, and like them or not, you have to admit that Clooney and Pitt put the “confidence”; in “con-men.”
It would be interesting to find the movie goer who has not seen 11 or 12 yet, show her 13 first, then have her watch 11, 12, and 13 again. That might give one a more “pure” sense of how good the movie is. Then again, as most who watch 13 do so because they’ve already seen the prequels, it has to stand in comparison.
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