I Hate Nines

Rating: 8/10 (18 June 2007)

I frankly think that audiences walk in with the exact opposite attitude towards the Ocean's films than the one I walk in with. Those who don't like them seem to come out with such a tainted look at everything, like even the best parts of the film are actually flaws. The people who like them seem to come out thinking that they've just seen a cute little romp devised as nothing more than a cash register by and for the millionaires starring in and making it. These people aren't wrong, but there is definitely a difference between Hollywood gloss with the mushy brain of an adolescent pyromaniac and that with the imagination of truly talented screenwriters.
Ocean's Thirteen, like the first two, is my kind of film, a slick, elaborate caper with hues of revenge and a dryly ditzy sense of humor. If this is your kind of film too, then sit back, and just be mutable with the problematic inconsistencies, my friend. The heist is a summation of the furthest expansion of David Levien and Brian Koppelman's wildest ideas, all contrived to integrate in a very fun and witty way. If you're complaining halfway through about the excessive and perhaps wanton use of laborious gadgets of either complete fantasy or costing of more money and time than would be practically involved in whatever robbery, then you should've watched the first two soon before seeing this one to get yourself geared up again. People perhaps don't pay close enough attention to the small details of dialogue and story inferences in the Ocean films, because truly every ridiculous point has an explanation decent enough to be bought somewhere in there. There's one point where the gadget aspect of Danny Ocean's plan, which if mapped out would take a trigonometric genius, where I could've drawn the line. I won't explain the instance for fear of giving anything away, so all I will say is that if you're going to seduce someone, seduce them. There is no easy chemical or technological way out of the hard part of it, but there's a small bit of dialogue that's very comfortably and gracefully in character that permits this little excuse for the writers not to elaborate a clever seduction scene.
But if there's any real peeve, anyone should have, it's what I'm about to mention, yet nobody ever says a word about it: First, they needed eleven people, but we bought it because Danny and Rusty thought long and hard about how many people they would need to pull off a virtually impossible heist on a Las Vegas casino vault, which had never before been successfully robbed. In Ocean's Twelve, we bought it because everybody owed Andy Garcia their own share of the debt, and the plot gives way to a sensible reason why there would be a need for a twelfth parcel at the last minute. Now, if you are a master thief that has proved himself to be such, why do you need thirteen people to rob a casino? You're a master! You don't need that many! I do understand the necessity of maintaining the regular appearances of the stars we expect, but then why not involve Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta-Jones in this one at all?
The cast of course is a joy to see, and they all reprise their roles with the careful amount of familiarity. The heel-clickingly pleasing casting choice of Al Pacino is of course a satisfaction to the commercial portions of our movie-going mentalities, and of course we all know who he plays. I personally found Ellen Barkin to be underused and in need of further screen time. She's still very hot and still a very engrossing actress. To see the same on-screen pairing of her with Pacino as we did 18 years ago in Sea of Love is quite an interesting and unexpected element of the film, especially when in Sea of Love they played passionate people, tugging violently at each other's emotions. Here, they stand next to each other, rarely exchange words, and almost never look each other in the eye.
Soderbergh, who has brought a very fresh and inventive touch of heavy style to the series, creates yet another advanced version of the world of colors, shades, editing, and gloss of Ocean's Eleven. Here, we're accosted by pinks and purples, and otherwise every color in the film is filled in like a lush painting or a Technicolor film by Powell and Pressburger, and title cards are given special backgrounds breaking from the action of the film, behind 1970s-style, almost African-style font. Having always been one of my favorite directors, he stays fresh and clever. Perhaps one minute, you'll think, this movie doesn't have the emotion or scope of a finale, but then you realize that all the characters and environments are those of a cold, earthy gloss. No tempestuous chemistry exists between anyone or anything, and that is part of the universe these films create. Ocean's Thirteen does everything a good, fun heist movie does.