Starring - George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Elliott Gould, Andy Garcia & Al Pacino.
Running Time - 122 minutes
Rated - PG
The third film sees Reuben Tishkoff (Gould) double-crossed by unscrupulous casino owner Willy Bank (Pacino), leading to a heart attack that lands him in hospital in some strange state of depression. Danny Ocean (Clooney) doesn't take kindly to this, so he reunites his numerous buddies (Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, etc.) and they come up with an elaborate revenge plan that involves destroying Bank's much-prized reputation on the opening night of his new casino.
Unfortunately for the viewing public, nobody thought to tell us that to understand the rest of the film you have to be paying complete attention for the next half hour, and remember everything that is being said. This was virtually impossible, but the films slickness almost makes you forget that everything your hearing makes no sense whatsoever.
Once the film does finally get in motion though it does become extremely entertaining, and the characters carry on with the on-screen banter which has made these films so popular. For me the Malloy brothers (Scott Caan & Casey Affleck) are still very much underused as their duo act provides the more laughable moments throughout. On the down side it seemed some of the stars were left with very little to do and they end up getting stuck doing little more than sit around. For example, the great Don Cheadle is left sitting around for much of the movie, watching the drill, or Bernie Mac who sells a domino game.
The film still has its ability to be completely outrageous and some moments do require you to be flexible in your hope of ‘movie realism’. For example, in order to interfere with some state of the art security system which can reads people emotions (I didn’t get it either), the guys had to create a mini earthquake. They come across a drill that was used to build the Channel Tunnel, however when that one breaks they manage to find the other one “that was used on the French side”, for a cheap $30,000,000!!!
All in all Ocean's Thirteen will be on one of the most straightforwardly enjoyable movies of the summer – and it does so by returning largely to basics. Gone is the awfulness which was Oceans 12, replaced instead by the thrill of the con and the joy of watching Ocean's men at play.
Best Bit: When the final heist actually begins and you start to make sense of what the previous 100 minutes were all about.
Rating: 3 out of 5, a definite improvement on Oceans 12, but neither of these extra two should have been made following the first remake; I suggest you stick with Oceans 11.
