Not as good as Eleven, but still great crime with splashes of comedy.

Rating: 7/10 (21 November 2014)

This third installment showcasing Vegas' most brilliant group of crooks may not have the same effect and quality of Eleven, but is nonetheless a good movie. It is certainly a step up from Ocean's Twelve, which I wasn't that impressed with and has more of the spirit of the first film. The only characters missing are Tess and Isabel, which some fans might not find to their liking. I feel like it might have been possible to give them both some kind of short scene. Returing faces are of course the original eleven (being Danny, Rusty, Linus, Frank, Basher, Virgil and Turk Malloy, Rueben, Saul, Livingston, and the Amazing Yen.) Also returning is our old enemy Terry Benedict, along with Rusty's hotel manager Roman, and SPOILER ALERT the Night Fox. Our new foe is the backstabbing, double-crossing Willy Bank, played by Al Pacino. He doesn't even bother trying to claim that he isn't a complete jerk. He knows that he is and it boosts his ego. He gives no excuse for backstabbing Reuben and you can tell that doing things like this is his life. We get a couple of new faces on the team in Eugene the gamer kid and a cop called Neil that sells Willy Bank's gold utensils on a black market. Both get very small parts and have next to no role in the robbery. The only other new parts worth noting are the five diamond award judge, or Very Unimportant Person, that is given a horrible experience at Bank's new hotel, and Bank's right hand (wo)man Abigail Sponder. In regards to comedy, there is a fair amount of the situational humor (especially in the hotel recon) that we get from the other two. Accompanying these are the witty remarks from the ultra-chilled protagonists. Of course the central theme of the movie is the robbery, which is performed, not for money, but for revenge on the part of Reuben. The veteran of the team suffers a heart attack after getting dissed by Bank. This becomes the motive for the robbery and we see Reuben regaining strength and will to live as he sees the team working for him. The plan in this scenario is not to get all of Bank's money, but to make him lose as much as possible on the opening night of his new hotel-casino. The plan has many parts to it with each character taking a different faction of the big plan. Danny Ocean is useless as always and does little more than negotiate with Bank. Frankly, I think that the whole series could be done without his character and not be any worse for it, but I won't bore you with all of my reasons for thinking that because I hate it when people go on rants in movie reviews. Rusty does some recon and works out the master plan with Roman and Danny. Roman is brought in as a troubleshooter and gives the team intelligence on the Greco security system. Livingston's job this time is not to hack any kind of system. He instead gets himself a job as a blackjack dealer in the casino and tries to rig the system. Frank hires a group of waitresses to work for the team in the hotel. Virgil Malloy is sent to Mexico to work in a dice factory where he loads the dice with magnetic powder. He also steps up in a crucial spot to hack a computer system in place of Livingston after Livingston gets busted for his blackjack antics. Turk basically does all of the mundane jobs for the team like in the first film, only without Virgil with him. Saul poses as a rich guest in the hotel and is visibly well attended to, while the VUP watches and is treated very poorly by the hotel staff. The Amazing Yen has a rather forced role as a high roller whale staying at the hotel for the soft opening. His "agent" and translator is a disguised Linus. His job is to distract Abigail Sponder while the rest of the plan in carried out. That only leaves Basher, whose job it is to knock down the incredible security system, The Greco. The one way to get it shut down is to create a natural disaster. Basher runs the turbine that creates an earthquake effect. During the three minutes that system is shut down, the bag of tricks cooked up by the rest of the team gets opened and the Bank is broken. At the same time, another robbery is taking place. Willy Bank's five diamond awards are the one thing that Terry Benedict is willing to get as payment for funding the team. This is a very difficult prize to pull, but as always the Ocean's gang gets it done and manages to embarrass Benedict in the process. Bank is stunned and crushed at the end as his dreams fall apart and his diamonds of the past and future are stolen from him. This scene is rather reminiscent of another '07 blockbuster, At Worlds End, when Cutler Becket has his ship torn to pieces along with his confidant facade. The execution is solid as in the first film with split screen cinematography and well written characters put into a well written script. The acting, of course, doesn't get much better with this kind of cast, and we get a more soothing guitars horns and light drums to accompany the crooks in their ever present mood of cool under pressure. To conclude, it's a good crime movie with a strong story, though not as good or as character balanced as Ocean's Eleven. If you liked Eleven, Thirteen should still be enjoyable, but not as spectacular. If you have doubts because of Twelve, throw them aside. There are splashes of comedy, but don't watch it unless you are willing to pay attention or have a friend to watch it that can keep you informed of the plot progression. Overall Rating: 8.3/10.