By John Brackett

By now we all know what to expect from Clooney’s gang of slick, sophisticated bandits: a thin plot built on style, hip music and the inside joke that they are actually these high-living, high-flying characters — albeit without the risk of prison. The fun is that they let us go along for the ride, so at least for two hours we’re in on the action.

In THIRTEEN, the whole crew returns, except for Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Thank God for that! Roberts is horrible. The second she appeared in OCEAN’S TWELVE, the movie took a nosedive and never recovered.
 
While Zeta-Jones is great to look at, she served no real purpose.  So, when Danny Ocean (Clooney) tells Rusty Ryan (Pitt), “It’s not their fight,” I almost yelled, “You go Daddy-O!” Danny’s crew are all guys, like it should be. Can you imagine Frank and Dean dragging along a dame to the Big Score?

This time, the Big Score is revenge against Vegas big shot and resident bully, Willie Bank (Al “Do I really need a last name here?”).  Bank screws Reuben (Elliott Gould) out of his action in a new casino they are building on the strip. This betrayal from a member of the exclusive club of men that “shook Sinatra’s hand” sends poor Reuben into a catatonic state, which spurs Ocean’s gang to come together to avenge their friend.

This is the baseline that director Steven Soderbergh uses to weave riffs of fantastically implausible subplots featuring characters from Ocean’s gang. He’s able to manage the large cast and multiple story lines through the groove he creates with sharp, infused colors, snappy editing and sizzling style. The note-perfect retro soundtrack by David Holmes provides the continuity of coolness that the OCEAN’S movies are all about.

Some subplots work better than others. Damon’s fling with Bank’s number two, “cougar” Ellen Barkin, is clever and sets up the grand finale of probably the most incredible stunt ever performed in a movie. (I have to say that because a good friend of mine created it.) Clooney and Pitt keep their smooth, “we’re having a good time and you know it” wink-and-a-smile buddy relationship flowing in an intensely fun way. Don Cheadle is freakin’ hilarious posing as Fender Roads, an Evel Knievel-type motorcycle stuntman character. It was good to see former — and maybe still — archnemesis Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) pulled back in, just when we thought he was out.

Saul Bloom’s (Carl Reiner) character, Kensington Chubb (best fake name ever!), was clever as the fake hotel evaluator, assessing the hotel for Bank’s obsession, his beloved Five Diamond award. The hell that the gang puts David Paymer’s real evaluator through has been done before, but is nonetheless fun to watch. And it’s worth it for the payoff at the end.

I did find the whole Mexican dice factory subplot boring and out of place. It was like they had to give Casey Affleck something to do. The Chunnel earthquake machine is something Wile E. Coyote would think up, but I bought into it because the movie put me in the mood to just have so much damn fun.

OCEAN’S THIRTEEN is the perfect summer movie; fun to watch, great to listen to and not anything too heavy to endure. I left the theater ready to roll the dice on the next one. “See you when I see you.”