This is going to be a long read, so only get in if you have the time. The reason being that I couldn’t write about Thirteen without drawing references and a providing a context to the entire series. I cannot see Thirteen as an isolated film, hence cant write about it as such.
I have to start by saying I am a fan of Steven Soderbergh, and most of the cast and more so, the Ocean’s series so far. I have seen both the earlier versions multiple times – so when Ocean’s Thirteen hit the screens, I wanted to see it before I had to hear about it from anyone else around. I came back disappointed. Let me paint my big picture of the Ocean’s series for you. Ocean’s 11 was a classic remake of a 1960’s con film, with Frank Sinatra leading the rat pack. Soderbergh’s version of the Clooney rat pack was a work of style, substance and quintessential con – where the audience is told what the heist is, the motivation behind it, the target, the plan and yet Soderbergh and his writers managed to have you go ‘WHOAA – what just happened’ when they showed you what happened. That is an intelligent film; the audience is not being duped, the target is. Classic con!
Ocean’s Twelve was more a style and strut film more than a con film. What I mean is, in Twelve, Soderbergh took the film forward from where he left it off in Eleven – a irate target in Terry Benedict(underplayed in both films by Andy Garcia), an able rival in Theodore(played with élan by Vincent Cassell) with a point to prove to himself, Ocean and gang and more importantly to his mentor, the legendary La Marc(played by the legendary Albert Brooks – another favorite of Soderbergh’s). So Twelve had friendly banter in the wonderfully written scene where the Ocean’s Eleven members meet again and bickle over how they’re unhappy with the ‘Bellagio’ job being called the ‘Ocean’ job and how no credit has amounted back to them, Matt Damon playing the wannabe, wanna prove I can do it – excited pup, and Clooney and Pitt carrying off the rest with the ease with which they did the first film. This film was so craftily scripted, there were times in the film where the members of the gang are pulling a fast one on each other, the writers are pulling a fast one on the audience and someone is always playing or being played with, by someone else – touché!
With all that background I went to watch Ocean’s Thirteen, the latest outing of the rat pack which brings them back to Las Vegas from touring all over Europe in the previous venture(because they were too hot to work in America then). This time, it’s not a job. This time it is personal. Willie Bank(Al Pacino – and I was expecting the world from him here) a ruthless, heartless casino owner with no scruples, and the only other guy in the business, apart from Reuben Tishkoff(Elliot Gould) to have shook Sinatra’s hand(that’s bringing the Ocean series a full circle – and a nice ploy by the writers). There is a code amongst those who belong to that era, but Bank breaks it and spirals Reuben into bed after he suffers a stroke for not listening to Ocean everyone else who sounded him against Bank. Such is the wrath he has induced upon himself that he brings back all the original members of the rat pack, and with alarming promptness. In an opening scene of the film, we see Pitt walk through a break-in setup(where the camera follows him in a Scorsese-esque shot from Goodfellas), he is about to do his thing when he gets a call which informs him about what has transpired and his reflex reaction is, ‘Got to go guys’ and he walks out. It’s the code – and these guys live by it. So the setup is all good, and I was set to enjoy another 2 hour journey with Soderbergh and some of the most likeable characters in recent film history, all played by stars who have rendered themselves as amiable as the characters themselves. It’s difficult to tell where the star ends and the character begins; and that is to a significant extent, the magic of this series.
This is where the downslide begins, which is to say, rather early in the film. The writing style is an attempt to keep the banter and rival repartee alive, as in the earlier films, but it’s just not good enough. We’ve seen the pinnacle of it in the previous films, but I say that only with the benefit of hindsight. What struck me as most unacceptable is the characterization of the new nemesis in Pacino, who comes off as being a loud-mouth with little brains, amply compensated for by the cleavage show of his right-hand woman, played by Ellen Barkin. How Bank got where he has with such absence of foresight or linearity in thought, I wondered; but that is beyond the purview of this film.
So when a gentlemanly request from Ocean is turned down unapologetically by Bank, the team goes to work on him. Then follow a series of events which construe the content of the film and the downfall of a great series so far. There are far too many ‘suspend your senses’ kind of events and ploys that the team works out this time in order to leave Bank distraught on the day of the Grand Opening(not the soft opening, the real ‘Grand’ opening – on July 3rd). These plans include planting members of the team at dice manufacturer’s for the casino, down in Mexico – leading up to an industrial strike out, manipulating the slot machines, getting Frank C(Bernie Mac in a delightfully lengthier role) to market and operate a fixed game of Dominos and working around an artificial intelligence system, a pioneering effort in an otherwise tougher than iron-clad, impregnable security system at Bank’s casino, The Bank, which makes the previous film look like cakewalk, and all of this leading up to the gang being left with no option but to effect an artificial earthquake i.e to *fake *an earthquake on the night of the grand opening. Well, the last time around they elevated a 3-storeyed house in Amsterdam, this time they had to better that, right?
They start digging underneath desert city with the first Chunnel they’ve leased, and they realize that they need to buy another one – this is the one which dug the English channel, from the French side.$36 Million is what they need, and obviously don’t have, which lands them at Terry Benedict’s door. Foe of a foe is a friend, and Benedict agrees to play along.
So Soderbergh gets you to suspend belief to a point where you wonder how come the gang faced no questions when they start digging under the earth with a machine so large, it can’t pass through the desert city without notice. You don’t wonder how Bank & Barkin so easily accept Sol in a case of mistaken(by intention of course) identity to be the inspector from the 5-diamond accreditation institute – and a few more things.
But what disappointed me the most was the utter simplicity(read dull-wittedness) to which Soderbergh reduced his characters – Al Pacino(now why would he keep an equipment donated by a random guy claiming to be a scientist right in his office?), Vincent Cassell(reduced from being an able rival to be a dim-wit who doesn’t for a second doubt how Linus Caldwell hands over the diamonds on the rooftop) etc etc etc… by the time we got to the climax, I didn’t care about what happened. Of course, we already knew Ocean and team would walk away victorious, but that was never the point of any of the films in the series – it was the way they got there – this time, not enough fun.