Plays too fast and loose to amount to much

Rating: 4/10 (1 August 2007)

Being new to the "Ocean" movies, I did not know what to expect from Ocean's 13. Given the cast, especially Al Pacino, I was looking forward to it. My enthusiasm drained away pretty quickly. The friend who invited me and who had liked both the Ocean's 11 remake and Ocean's 12, had the same reaction I did -- disappointment with the relative lack of action and of spark to the characters here.
Ocean's 13 has a light, glib flow and style to it. It has some pleasant, attractive actors and scenery. Pacino's electronic security system gives the movie some focus and challenge. But its choppy pace and frivolity are disappointing. When a movie, like this one, sets up a series of major and minor "cons," it should use subtle, clever strokes and should play fair. This movie plays fast and loose on both scores.
Within minutes, Ocean has lined up countless moles in key positions in Pacino's casino. This occurs in flimsy and unbelievable ways, like simply dropping in and making an open-ended promise to a desk clerk that she will be made a manager, slipping a restaurant manager some fast cash, and catching a casino floor manager pawning fancy house silverware. The way Ocean infiltrates a man into the casino as a dealer is played more for laughs than believability, and it is left completely up in the air how later blowing the cover of that same man makes any sense for Ocean's plans. A quick, easy chat with one big-shot is all it takes for Ocean to get carloads of high-rolling "whale" gamblers to up and leave Pacino's hotel.
Very early on, Ocean's team seems to have free run of the casino's security and electronics floor. With ease, they repeatedly tramp back and forth across it, so that, for example, one of his men can relieve a guard at just the right moment. Details about how Ocean plans to fix Pacino's dice, roulette wheels, and slot machines, and use a gigantic drill to mimic an earthquake, are glossed over to the point they come off as amateur science fiction - not to mention "the Gilroy," some sort of magical love potion used to reduce the only mildly competent guest character in the film, Pacino's top manager Ellen Barkin, to jello.
Particularly poorly handled is the way the team spoils Pacino's attempt to get a five-star rating for his hotel. The movie goes completely over the top in inflicting all manner of extreme, unbelievable, foul treatment on the implausible-acting visiting critic. Not content at depriving Pacino of five stars, the movie pounds the joke into the ground, not stopping even at one star. How, in the midst of all of the luxury and other satisfied hotel guests, are we supposed to think that the critic, or anyone else, would believe such an exaggerated, isolated experience? As if in recognition of the clumsy, near-sadistic, unfunny excess, there is a simple-minded, contrived scene at the end where the beleaguered critic is helped to win big at an airport slot machine.
Playing fair not only means that the film cannot lift off completely from reality, but it also means that both the good and bad guys need to be up to the challenge. Here, Pacino does nothing but talk tough. He is given fair notice by Ocean at the start, but does not make a single smart move the entire movie, only mistake after mistake (such as being easily manipulated into allowing Bernie Mac to set up a game on the casino floor and generally allowing Ocean's men to swarm all over his hotel, completely undetected and undeterred). In one token scene, which the script comes right out and tells us is meant to show how savvy Pacino is, he taps into an FBI computer to search for the identity and known associates of a dealer who Ocean planted in the casino. But this incident only makes everyone look bad. It depends on Ocean confusingly blowing the dealer's cover, it nearly destroys Ocean's plans, and the way Ocean and his men get out of it is wildly exaggerated and far too convenient. Also way too easily, Ocean dismisses Pacino's threats at the end, confirming the character's total impotence.
Indeed, the few adversities faced by Ocean are trumped-up accidents, either overcome too easily or too implausibly. As a result, there is a near-total lack of suspense and a diminished, anticlimactic sense of accomplishment at the end.
The film has an overall slack pace, despite -- or maybe because of -- rapid cutaways between short, thin scenes. At times, it feels like slow-motion, which can be one of director Soderbergh's worst tendencies. This saps not only the drama but also the humor. There are so many characters that few if any have time to shine. As if to make up for this, Damon, Cheadle, and Bernie Mac get strained, far-fetched, show-boating scenes that only fall flat. Andy Garcia seems injected almost as an afterthought.
The film evokes some sentimentality about the Elliott Gould character, including a short scene reminiscing about "the old Las Vegas," but much about this is superficial and unexplained. His end scenes, in which he shows up at and struts around Pacino's casino in fancy dress with a big cigar sticking out of his mouth, acting triumphant based on absolutely nothing that he himself has done, strike a false and ineffective note.
Nothing could be easier with a movie like this than writing a canned, shallow, gushing review that ignores all of the problems, settles for the movie's famous faces and places and glitzy, smooth, and easy feel, and hides behind lazy labels like "popcorn movie" or "caper flick." Of course, these qualities, and the talented people involved, give the movie some entertainment value. But not nearly enough. Any serious review has to come to grips with the failings that make this movie a disappointing missed opportunity even as mildly entertaining fluff.