Movie Review: Ocean’s Thirteen – Starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Ellen Barkin, Andy Garcia & Al Pacino

Movie: Ocean’s Thirteen (PG-13)
Released: June 8th, 2007
Runtime: 1 hr. 53 min.
Ticket Price: $5.00 Early Matinee
Refreshments: Gummy Bears
Starring: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Ellen Barkin, Andy Garcia & Al Pacino
Director: Steven Soderbergh

Rating: Worth a Full Price Ticket –

Synopsis: When Danny Ocean’s mentor and friend is double-crossed and hurt by big time casino owner Willy Bank, the gang gets together to make him pay. They set out to ruin opening night of his new casino by changing the house odds in their favor.

Review: Ocean’s Thirteen has all of what made Ocean’s Eleven great fun and none of what made Ocean’s Twelve seem a bit of a mess. The third installment had a singular focus, one big con job, in one locale, to get back at a guy that hurt a friend and mentor. This is much like the first one, as Danny was trying to get back at the guy that his ex was now seeing.

Ocean’s Twelve had too many locations and jobs to pull off, just too much going on. But, given the success of Ocean’s Eleven, you just new there was going to be another one. Given the downer that the second one was compared to the first, I wouldn’t have thought that a third would not have even been made.

But Ocean’s Thirteen brought it back to where it needed to be, Vegas. The job to ruin the opening night of The Bank, a new hotel about to open on the Strip by Willy Bank played by Al Pacino (The Recruit, Any Given Sunday). This guy would pull a fast one on his mother if it would help him get ahead. He made an even better bad, bad guy than Andy Garcia (Smokin’ Aces, Confidence), as the mark in the first film, Terry Benedict. You really wanted to see the gang get this guy. That is pretty special to create a character in just a few brief scenes at the beginning of the movie that you want to see taken down a notch or five.

George Clooney (Syriana, Out of Sight) and Brad Pitt (Babel, Mr. & Mrs. Smith) sure have a lot of fun, and the audience with them, when they are on screen together. These two really have a great rapport as Danny Ocean and Rusty Ryan. The watching Oprah scene, which is shown in most of the trailers, is a great example of that. The second part of that scene is one of the best in the movie.

Everybody gets a little time on screen to shine. Whether it is Casey Affleck (The Last Kiss, American Pie 2) as Virgil Malloy, while undercover as an employee, inciting a strike at a Mexican Plastics company that makes casino dice, Matt Damon’s (The Good Shepherd, The Bourne Identity) young pickpocket character Linus Caldwell growing in both stature and respect amongst the group or Don Cheadle (Reign Over Me, Hotel Rwanda) becoming daredevil Fender Roads to distract Bank.

Going into the summer of the threquel with Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, given the first two installments of each, I would of bet that Ocean’s Thirteen would have ranked near the bottom. But, it turned out to be the best threquel of the summer.

So, what did you think? After Ocean’s Thirteen, would you want to see an Ocean’s Fourteen in the summer of 2010?