Authorized newspaper of Fort Lewis, Washington
“Ocean’s Thirteen” is all about the scam. Two-thirds of the picture is devoted to setting it up. The final third is given over to pulling it off.
The third, and perhaps final, entry in the saga that started in 2001 with “Ocean’s 11” is the most mechanistic yet. There are so many moving parts to the elaborate con job dreamed up by Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his larcenous crew that you’ll never be able to keep track of them all.
Watching the picture, I was reminded of how Raymond Chandler claimed even he wasn’t quite sure who did one of the killings in “The Big Sleep” … and he wrote the novel. “Ocean’s Thirteen” is like that. I’d be willing to bet that director Steven Soderbergh and credited writers Brian Koppelman and David Levien sometimes felt lost in their self-created labyrinth.
The only thing simple in it is the motive behind the con. Danny & Co. intend to ruin ruthless Vegas casino owner Willy Bank (Al Pacino), who cheated Danny’s mentor in crime Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould) out of ownership of a new hotel-casino complex on the Strip. The shock of being bilked so brazenly causes Reuben to fall over with a near-fatal heart attack. And that sets the vengeance clock ticking. For that, Danny decrees, this Bank will be broken.
Impregnable supercomputers, giant tunneling machines, doctored dice, zillion-dollar diamonds, bad disguises, striking Mexican factory workers, bedbugs and a powerful aphrodisiac are all elements in the confusing plot.
But in the midst of the confusion, one thing becomes clear: Crime pays.
Danny and the boys appear to have their own corporate jet. They can spring for not one, but two multimillion-dollar tunneling machines. And they can afford more high-tech gizmos and gadgets than the Impossible Missions Force uses in a year.
And then there are the suits. The outfits Danny and his right-hand man Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) wear in “Thirteen ” look like they cost the equivalent of the annual GNP of one of the wealthier European principalities.
With a cast to die for and ritzy Vegas settings, Soderbergh shows us the money in “Ocean’s Thirteen.” This is high-gloss Hollywood filmmaking polished to the brightest possible sheen.
The cast’s two biggest superstars, Clooney and Pitt, serve as presiding officers. Over the course of three pictures, they’ve perfected a minimalist approach to their roles and their relationship to each another. Their characters practically read each other’s minds. In one of their funniest scenes, they finish each other’s sentences. And they’re short sentences. A word or two, and bang! The other completes the thought.
The less-is-more approach works fine for them. These two look way cool – sharp suits, swell shades, classy haircuts – but they exude great warmth. They and Soderbergh are so confident of their star power that they seem to glide effortlessly through the picture’s complexities. The plot may be overly busy, but they never break a sweat.
With Clooney and Pitt keeping a relatively low profile, the way has been cleared for others in the vast ensemble cast to step up and stand out.
Matt Damon is the key scene stealer, playing Linus Caldwell, perhaps the most diffident yet eager-to-excel member of the crew. Disguised in a ridiculous fake nose and with severely greased-back hair, he romances Willy Bank’s all-business female factotum (Ellen Barkin) with a hilarious combination of surface suavity and ill-concealed unease.
Scott Caan and Casey Affleck, playing tech-savvy brothers who are always trying to one-up each other, also shine.
Soderbergh and his writers see to it that virtually all the significant characters – and there are 15 of them – have one key defining scene. No one gets lost in the shuffle.
Curiously, the star making the least impact is Pacino. He seems to be phoning it in: Al Pacino As Power-Hungry Master of the Universe, Variation No. 73. The only thing unusual about him in this role is his hair color and his tan. Both are a matching shade of deep orange.
He looks silly, but that seems to be the point. This is a picture that refuses to take itself seriously. This is a picture that wants above all to entertain you. And it does it so expertly that it barely matters that the particulars of its plot are almost impenetrably confusing.
You may not always get “Ocean’s Thirteen,” but you’ll definitely enjoy it.
Ocean’s Thirteen * * *
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle and Al Pacino
Running Time: 2:02
Rating: PG-13; language
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