Slick but hollow

Rating: 4/10 (6 June 2007)

After the grand heist and goofing off (well, mostly goofing off) in Europe, director Steven Soderbergh and the gang return to Las Vegas to plan yet another scheme of a slick looking production that rings hollow and without much payoff.
Danny Ocean's (George Clooney) friend Reuben (Eliott Gould) suffers a heart attack after getting cut out of a hotel business deal with Willy Banks (Al Pacino), a notorious businessman in Sin City. To get even, Ocean, Rusty (Brad Pitt), Linus (Matt Damon) and the other compadres team up with Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) to bring down Banks by bankrupting the hotel on its grand opening night.
The plotting is never really as compelling as it could be, and "Ocean's Thirteen" doesn't boast enough finesse and skill in its execution to make the film fun for most of its running time. The biggest flaw in the screenplay is that it doesn't take full advantage of the tension and conflict supposed to be inherent to the setup. Not every actor's back in cool form, Pacino's character doesn't come off as amusing, and the overall interaction among the characters has become oozing with mere machismo and virtually no zing that all one is really able to do is watch the mechanics of the storyline as they actors play themselves out to a climax that this time around isn't as compelling as to be a carelessly made movie's saving grace.
"Ocean's Thirteen" is a rough, substandard time waster that builds upon a thread towards the payoff, yet not accomplishing anything consequential upon getting there.