untitled
OCEAN'S
13
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Written by: Brian Koppelman & David Levien
Internet
Movie
Database Entry for full details
GRADE: B
2007.
"You don't run the same gag
twice," Don Cheadle says—his irritating Cockney accent
thankfully dampened—somewhere in the middle of the third
installment in the unnecessary Ocean's franchise,
and it's tough to say whether Soderbergh means it as some sort of
peremptory apologia or as just a moment of glib, ironic self-knowing.
As Soderbergh must be aware, even though the plot is "different" and
the details aren't exactly the same, Ocean's 13
is essentially a mere replaying of Ocean's 11; so
it's lucky for everyone involved—filmmakers and
audience—that that was a pretty good flick.
This time around Al Pacino's on board, mercifully not chewing on the
scenery as is his custom—I don't recall him ever even
shouting, if you can believe it—following his turn as Shylock
by playing Willie Bank, yet another shyster. He fucks over Danny
Ocean's (George Clooney) gang's mentor, played with chewy Jewy panache
by Elliott Gould, by cutting him out of a casino partnership; that's an
especially fucked up move because they both "shook Sinatra's hand", and
there's an unwritten code in Vegas dat says guys who done dat don't do
dat. It causes Gould to suffer a myocardial infarction that almost
sends him to the big casino in the sky, and Clooney decides to get the
gang—Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Bernie Mac, Cheadle, Carl Reiner,
Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, etc.—together to exact revenge.
Their plan is a convoluted scheme to sabotage Pacino's hotel-casino on
its opening night by rigging the machines and game tables to pay out
big, while also spoiling the stay of an influential guidebook writer.
Oh, and they also have to steal some excessively-protected diamonds. A
complicated scheme, it involves a good deal of tampering, fixing and
fine-tuning—including causing an earthquake (!)—but
Soderbergh keeps the pace steadily charging along, as everything that
could go wrong does and the gang scrambles to resile. The implausible
becomes the impossible, the complex turns convoluted, and it's all
deliciously pointless, leading to an anticipated climax that manages to
be, like the entire film, superficially satisfying and flagrantly
vacuous. "I like you," Eddie Izzard tells Clooney and his partner,
Pitt, "you've got style, you've got brio," and it's those very
qualities, and those qualities alone, that make the film such a
pleasure.
In its glorification of criminality, Ocean's 13
functions as a reminder that the halcyon post-Hays days are still with
us, as it harks back to the flashy cinema of the 1970's in its stylish
credit sequences (both opening and end) and absence of a meaningful
moral center. (Soderbergh, whose last film was The Good
German, is becoming a professional homagist.) If Ocean's
13 has any subtext, aside from a loopy subplot about Mexican
labor struggles, it's a melancholic acknowledgment of the vicissitudes
of Hollywood. "You're analog players in a digital world," Izzard,
again, tells Clooney-Pitt, as though they and their director are a
dying breed of old-fashionists, the sort who wouldn't fuck over
somebody who'd shook David Selznick's hand. Or at least Robert Evans'.
It's strangely self-pitying and aggrandizing but also wholly
forgivable, and does at least provide for a small but touching scene in
which Clooney-Pitt turn nostalgic, having a conversation that
concludes, laconically: "town's changed."
There's a good share of this sort of small character moment interwoven
into the larger tapestry of flash, dazzle and razzamatazz that makes
the film stronger. Clooney-Pitt, with a delightfully breezy rapport
akin to a back massage, are often cut to in mid-conversation about
their romantic relationships, while Damon deals with his Daddy Issues,
particularly his quest for validation that his faux-pointy-nose
disguise is a job well-done. (Disguises are a recurring joke, from
Clooney with a thick, Latin mustache to a hirsute Pitt recalling his True
Romance days.)
It's also a very self-conscious film. When, in answer to whether or not
he's ready, Andy Garcia cracks, "I was born ready," the camera lingers
on Clooney who delivers a sweeping eye roll. Ocean's 13
has no patience for hoak or corn, being, as it is, the embodiment of
effortless cool. There's a lot of talk that Soderbergh (and Clooney)
make these big cashcows so that they can afford to fund their smaller,
more personal projects, but it seems more likely that the Ocean's
films are just as personal to Soderbergh & Co. as anything else
they produce. Gould, in Polonius mode, makes a speech at the end about
remaining true to oneself, which feels like a sly admission from
Soderbergh in regard to what he's become, a convivial and substanceless
filmmaker. This disappoints the sex, lies and videotape
contingent of his fans (or former fans, as they surely consider
themselves) but I don't mind. As Clooney alliteratively shouts near the
end of the film, "it sure as shit ain't sad!"
--
Henry Stewart
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"You don't run the same gag
twice," Don Cheadle says—his irritating Cockney accent
thankfully dampened—somewhere in the middle of the third
installment in the unnecessary Ocean's franchise,
and it's tough to say whether Soderbergh means it as some sort of
peremptory apologia or as just a moment of glib, ironic self-knowing.
As Soderbergh must be aware, even though the plot is "different" and
the details aren't exactly the same, Ocean's 13
is essentially a mere replaying of Ocean's 11; so
it's lucky for everyone involved—filmmakers and
audience—that that was a pretty good flick.
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