Much better than Twelve - fun, funny thriller

Rating: 7/10 (17 June 2007)

The really good news is that Ocean's Thirteen is completely enjoyable. I mean, after the crap effort of Ocean's Twelve, who could expect anything, well, good? The last one just felt like a bunch of buddy celebs getting together from some yuks and a good ol' time. But Thirteen tries very hard to make you forget Twelve ever happened, and it largely succeeds.
This time around, the boys are out to avenge their good pal Rueben (Elliot Gould), who's been doublecrossed by the nefarious Willie Bank (Al Pacino). Reuben invested heavily in Bank's new, colossal casino in Vegas, but then Bank screwed Rueben out of his share, defrauding him of zillions. The general plan that Danny Ocean (George Clooney) has come up with is to ruin Bank's opening night on many levels - fix games, cause natural disasters, steal his diamonds, make sure the casino reviewer has a bad time, that sort of thing.
Gone are the self-indulgent overtones of Twelve, as the series returns to its roots as a crisply written caper punctuated by self-effacing performances and a wild, yet not implausible, plot. And, even better, there are times when I actually laughed out loud. I know! Whoda thunk that? The good news is that through three movies, the main characters haven't changed; they haven't grown, they're not evolving into higher beings, nothing. They are simply who they are. Danny is the leader, a man cool under pressure but not smugly so - kind of like George Clooney offscreen, come to think of it. Well, from what I've heard. Rusty (Brad Pitt) is still his right-hand man. Linus (Matt Damon) appears to be #3, but he's just as much of a doofus as he's always been (this time around, his father makes an appearance). Most of the other guys - including the timeless Carl Reiner as Sol - get short shrift, but whaddya gonna do when you have eleven, twelve, whatever, guys? They can't all get the good lines.
One pleasant surprise is that Pacino reins himself in a bit. He's not all eyes-bugging-out mad, like he was in Scarface, or Devil's Advocate, or Any Given Sunday, or a million other movies; no, he's more laid back, but totally in control. Apparently Pacino was the guy that director Steven Soderbergh wanted all along, and he does a damn good job - it's always good to see Al being a Good Actor instead of a ham. Along for the ride is another name actor, Ellen Barkin, who I'm told once was pretty attractive. At any rate, she's Bank's right-hand woman, a sort of Team Evil counterpart to Rusty; Barkin's Sponder is punctual, efficient, and poured into a slinky breast-baring (almost) dress at all times. Arm candy never hurts, thinks Bank. But beware! For some reason Soderbergh gives us a couple of closeups of Barkin. Hide the children! Or use the opportunity to warn them about the dangers of plastic surgery.
Okay, enough Barkin bashing, and back to the story. Ocean has all of the angles covered, but at the eleventh hour he finds himself in need of major fundage. Everyone's tapped out, of course, so to whom can they turn but Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), the entrepreneur that the Ocean gang beat in the first two films. It's good to see Garcia, and at least his character's appearance here isn't contrived. Well, not too contrived - they didn't know anyone else who could spot them $36 million? Eh, guess not.
The one character who annoys me in these movies is Linus Caldwell. He's a pest to Danny and Rusty; although he supposedly has talents, he seems to spend a lot of time being a pain in the ass to everyone. When he comes up with an idea, everyone's shocked, and when he's supposed to be accomplishing something, he fails. At least here his noodginess is less obtrusive than it was in Twelve, when Linus actually ran a plan of his own device. I wonder if the character is supposed to be endearing, almost adorable in how inept he is - if so, though, then Damon really sucks, as the result is that I wish Linus would be killed off.
Still. Ocean's Thirteen is lots of fun, way more funner than Twelve, and it helps that the bad guy has a strong, pervasive personality that prevents predictability. I think that, as Soderbergh and Clooney have said, this one makes up for the crap that came before it.