Ocean’s Thirteen (2007)

Directed By: Steven Soderburgh
Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Bernie Mac, Elliot Gould, Carl Reiner, Al Pacino, Eddie Izzard, Ellen Barkin, Don Cheadle, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, Eddie Jemison, Shaobo Qin, Andy Garcia
Released

After the breezy, cool and effortlessly brilliant Ocean’s Eleven, came the pretentious, arrogant and self indulgent Ocean’s Twelve. So what then would Ocean’s thirteen come up with. Unlucky for some or a full house? Well it falls somewhere inbetween. Gone are the hangers-on, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Julia Roberts, replaced, to keep some feminine input with Ellen Barkin, who easily exudes more glamour and sex appeal than both the A-Listers combined. Returning also are the stars of the first two films, Ocean’s eleven, Andy Garcia, Vincent Cassel and Eddie Izzard. And for the most part the supporting cast is very good. Cassel is unused to the point of irrelevance, Garcia chews the scenery in the few scenes he has and Eddie Izzard seems to be getting better at acting by just sharing scenes with Brad and George. Pacino is playing a caricature of previous characters his played but does it with enough self consciousness to never fall either side of watchable.

But this film belongs to George and the gang. Or at the very least George. One of America’s greatest actors, his diversity and versatility make watching his returns to cool exterior and smooth operator sublime. He’s never resting on his charms or his looks instead using them to create a character isn’t just charms and looks. If he had been this franchise would never have survived the ludicrous sequel. Brad and Matt are fantastic, Damon particularly in scenes which bring up his illustrious father once more; and his seduction sequence is one of the franchises most comical moments. Brad gets to do what he does best, play wingman to Clooney’s pilot, but he does it with such charisma that he could just stand and do nothing and you’d think it was cool.

Unfortunately this is were the patented genius of Eleven begins to wear thin. In the original Ocean adventure, every character had a role to play, and they were recruited because of their expertise in said role. Here however it becomes a mixed of dog of tricks characters who freely switch around. Notice Shaobo Qin’s mere cameo at doing what he does best.

This leads to the other irksome problem which has lingered since Twelve. Soderburgh has become to intent of being smart and clever with his cons that he’s given up explaining how they actually work. Instead we now just see glimpses of the cons in action and infer the how later. Eleven’s genius sprung exactly from the fact that you could bask in the gangs genius because they talked you through every element so not only did you realise how difficult it was, you knew in the end how they performed it. Here such moments of genius leave the audience befuddled, and perplexed. But if they knew about that then why didn’t they…. Forget, you not supposed to understand. Your supposed to bask in their genius and feel slightly inferior.

Soderburgh’s direction takes care of most of this. Like Eleven it gleams with Vegas style; editing, camera movements, shot compositions, all are about a cool as you get in modern cinema, and Soderburgh knows it. He is so aware of how cool his story and characters are that he plans on plastering across the screen. And unfortunately, like Twelve, if the story doesn’t hold up the film ends up feeling slightly conceited.

But Clooney et al will come away from this feeling unaffected by the criticisms or flaws. And it’s Clooney who covers most of them up. He lures the audience to join him in his exploits with such effortless ease that you’ll forgive the film its transgressions simply because Clooney is so damn charming and such a great leader.

Though hugely inferior to the original, Thirteen far surpasses the pretensions of Twelve and delivers a satisfying if not entirely entertaining ride.