Ocean's Thirteen (2007)
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Danny Ocean's team of criminals are back and composing a plan more personal than ever. When ruthless casino owner Willy Bank doublecrosses Reuben Tishkoff, causing a heart attack, Danny Ocean vows that he and his team will do anything to bring down Willy Bank along with everything he's got. Even if it means asking for help from an enemy.
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8 films that influenced Ocean's Thirteen
What critics say influenced Ocean's Thirteen
(It also recalls a long-ago film noir called "Force of Evil," where John Garfield tried to fix the number to come up "1776" on the Fourth of July.)
In that respect, Ocean's Thirteen is more like the original film's 1964 sequel-in-spirit, Robin and the 7 Hoods.
She may have pulled it off back in "The Big Easy" day, but age just makes her wear confidence too well.
He also graciously resisted a reporter's comparisons between his new film, in which Danny Ocean (Clooney) and the boys set out to swindle an evil casino developer played by Al Pacino, and "The Sting," the Hollywood classic with Paul Newman and Robert Redford.
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In 1960 Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack pals made a comedy caper called "Ocean's 11" (or "Ocean's Eleven," since the opening titles used both numerals and letters).
Julia Roberts took this film off, but Al Pacino and Ellen Barkin last seen together 18 years ago, performing urgent stand-up sex in Sea of Love are on board for star wattage and the nostalgia factor.
The opportunity to rekindle Sea of Love sparks between the reunited Barkin and Pacino is wasted, the seduction being left to Matt Damon's fumbling Linus.
Sea of Love is unrestrained and completely hypnotic; thanks Steven Soderbergh for bringing Barkin and Pacino back together Ocean’s Thirteen; I know officially understand.
Livingston Dell (Eddie Jemison) can't corrupt a card game to save his life and Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon) insists he can seduce Bank's assistant, Abigail Sponder (Ellen Barkin, Pacino's "Sea of Love" costar), wearing a prosthetic nose that makes him look like Crispin Glover.
As for Pacino (Barkin's "Sea of Love" partner many moons ago) he's every bit the bronzed, manicured bully.
Pacino and fellow newcomer Ellen Barkin, in their unexpected and frankly undesired post- Sea of Love reunion have the same sort of lazy fun that everybody else had in the first two except for Catherine Zeta-Jones in Twelve, and that's either your bag or it isn't.
It's a nice gesture, and Soderbergh shoots this quiet scene, as he does most others, with high style, but in the wake of Swingers and The Cooler , these sentiments are a little late to the after-party.
And for a while there, the film undeniably does feel like a carbon copy of Ocean's Eleven - complete with introductory sequences for each of the characters.
The good thing is that the script brings Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and the rest of his gang back to Las Vegas, where the whole idea began in 1960 with the original Ocean's Eleven, created by Frank Sinatra and his brat pack as a vehicle for showing what fun it was to belong among the naughtiest boys in the class.
A sequel to 2001's entertaining "Ocean's Eleven," the film was fraternity filmmaking that featured mainstream actors snubbing their noses at mainstream moviemaking in a movie ironically targeted for the mainstream.
If the overstuffed caper comedies “Ocean’s Eleven” and “Twelve” lacked for anything, it was an adversary villainous enough to hold his own against Danny Ocean, and an actor formidable enough to hold the screen opposite George Clooney, who plays the series’ charming bandit.
The Ocean movies (2001's Ocean's Eleven and 2004's Ocean's Twelve) have never been hard to look at, but director Steven Soderbergh's third run at the heist formula seems to be a case of practice making perfect.
No, Steven Soderbergh’s third film in the adventures of Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and company doesn’t quite measure up to Ocean’s Eleven (2001), but that’s no disgrace since that film was an entertainment so nearly perfect as to almost cross over into the realm of a great movie by any standard.