Film - Ocean's Thirteen (2007, Dir. Steven Soderburgh)

So there was Ocean's 11, the remake of the brat pack movie from 1960. That was a stylish and well crafted re-make. Then came Ocean's 12. Not as good as '11', but managed to escape the more acidic wrath of the critics. So, with Ocean's 13, Steven Soderburgh and his crew had a chance to redeem themselves and win back the fans they may have lost after '12' (are you keeping up?). Did they do it? Personally, yes, I think they did.



The selling point of the first Soderburgh movie was the intricacy of the heist and the talents of the assembled crew. The selling point of the second movie was...well, I'm not entirely sure, to be honest, and as a result it just plodded along without really engaging it's audience. With '13', Soderburgh had to take a different approach. The audience was familiar with the talents of the players, the witty back-and-forth between them and had already been drawn into the high stakes world of Vegas gambling and big money scams. So, in the third instalment we see the 'human' sides to the crew members. The benefactor behind the previous scams, Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould) is double crossed by Willie Bank (Al Pacino) during a joint business venture and as a result, his health deteriorates, nearly killing him. With revenge in their hearts, Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and Rusty Ryan (Bradd Pitt) call up their trusty crew and set about getting even with Bank.



The problem is that Bank is one of the most savvy, quick thinking and well connected businessmen in Vegas and scamming him and his state of the art hotel and casino is going to take all of Ocean's crew's talents and then some. All the usual ingredients are there; the set up, the almost incomprehensible but impressive jargon-filled conversations, the planning, the baffling technology and the wry humour. However, this movie is far slower paced than the first two, reflecting the enormity of the task Ocean's crew has on their hands. Things go wrong, things break and some things just plain don't work. All the activity is played out to the backdrop of Reuben's slow and unpredictable recovery, reminding us why they're doing it, with Ocean and Ryan even reminiscing about the old days, when they first met Reuben.



The point is clear; they're not doing this because they're thieves or conmen. They're doing it because one of their friends has been double crossed and needs their help. A big indicator of how much it all means to them comes when the crew go to Terry Benedict, Ocean's nemesis of sorts, to enlist his help.



The performances are all top notch again, Clooney and Pitt exeduing 'cool' from every pore, while the other players fill their roles superbly. The return of Roman Nagel, subtly played by Eddie Izzard, gives the movie a sense of continuity in relation to Ocean's 12 and the whole thing just works. If Ocean et al were seen as maybe a little heartless or cold in their actions in the previous outings, their characters are seen in a different light when compared to the hard-hearted, machiavellian Willie Bank, brilliantly played by Pacino (who remains one of the few actors who I would watch in anything).



After the relative disappointment of Ocean's 12, this movie had a lot to live up to and it has done the trick by adding the human touch that the first two, for whatever reason, were lacking. Whatever damage was done by Ocean's 12 has surely been repaired now and Ocean's crew can sit back and take a well earned holiday.