Third Time's the Charm

Ocean's Thirteen

(PG-13)

originally published June 13, 2007

After an overlong, overly self-referential second caper that existed more as an excuse for Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Julia Roberts to hang out at George Clooney’s Italian villa (I liked Ocean’s Twelve; I just feel the actors had more fun making it than I did watching it), Ocean’s Thirteen seems to have rebottled the effervescent, effortless charms of 2001’s Ocean’s Eleven (all three of the new films easily surpass the original 1960 Rat Pack vehicle). Revenge is the name of Thirteen’s game as Danny (Clooney) and the boys (Pitt, Damon, Bernie Mac, Don Cheadle, Elliott Gould, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, Shaobo Qin, Eddie Jemison and Carl Reiner) plot to pay back casino owner Willie Bank (Al Pacino, hamming it up in an appropriate manner) for hurting one of their own. As always, the scheme - some high-concept attempt to rob Bank of $500 million plus during the grand opening of his new hotel - gets more tangled than is necessary (and untangled far too easily and presciently), but the gentlemanly interplay between megastars Clooney, Pitt and Damon goes down easier than 20-year-old scotch.

No major Hollywood player bounces from independent cinema (Bubble) to blockbuster as effortlessly as director Steven Soderbergh. With an atmosphere as light as hydrogen, Thirteen floats closer to the old-fashioned, extravagantly star-filled skies of yesteryear than any film since Eleven. Smooth, charming and never unctuous, Clooney is the modern Cary Grant, an eternal playboy more at home in a tuxedo or three-piece suit than flannel or denim. His exchanges with pal Pitt are witty and well-timed. High marks to screenwriters Brian Koppelman and David Levien (Walking Tall, Brian De Palma’s upcoming Untouchables prequel) for a pithiness that rivals its frivolous density. Amazingly, with so many characters (and egos), Thirteen supplies everyone with relatively equal time. Damon’s Linus gets an even plusher assignment this time, seducing Bank’s cougar of an assistant (Ellen Barkin, relishing her place as the only woman in this old boys’ club) while wearing a honker of a fake proboscis. Yet it’s the Malloy brothers’ (Affleck and Caan) inspired Mexican revolution that might be the series’ top tributary. Even previous series villains, played by Andy Garcia and Vincent Cassel, get back in the action, proving to have learned nothing from their earlier encounters with Ocean and his crew. Back in Vegas where they belong, Danny Ocean’s Eleven prove smarter and fresher in their third outing than Spider-Man, Shrek or Captain Jack. A surprisingly resourceful and inventive reunion of a skilled director and some of Hollywood’s most entertaining top-drawer talent, Thirteen isn’t such an unlucky number after all.

Drew Wheeler