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Harvey Karten's Reviews

Review: Ocean's Thirteen

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#1 of 1 Posted 6/5/07 10:31 PM

From Harveycritic Posts 1632 Last Nov-2
To All [Msg # 22444.1 ]

OCEAN'S THIRTEEN

Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey S. Karten
Warner Bros/ Village Roadshow
Grade: B-
Directed by:    Steven Soderbergh
Written By: Brian Koppelman, David Levien
Cast:   George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, Ellen Barkin, Al
Pacino, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan
Screened at: AMC Empire, NYC, 6/5/07
Opens: June 8, 2007

Two revenge movie movies opened back-to-back in New York: “Ocean’s Thirteen” on June 8 and, one week earlier, the documentary, “Crazy Love.” The latter film by Dan Klores, pieced together lovingly with a mass of archival photos dating from the 1950's, is based on the horrific case of an ambulance-chasing lawyer, Burt Pugach, who fell in love at first sight with one Linda Riss, and was determined to sweep her off her feet. A rich man earning $80,000 a year when others was pulling in $4,000, he picked her up for breakfast, lunch and dinner, took her up in his plane, wine and dined her in his own night club, but when she began to show a preference for a Florida hunk named Schwartz, he said to himself, “If I can’t have her no-one else will.” To take revenge against her “wrong” choice of a boyfriend, he hired a punk, who hired some other thugs, who threw lye in her face, which blinded her, resulting in a long jail sentence for Pugach. The remarkable twist is: when he got out of jail fourteen years later, Linda married him!

Why bring this up? Simply because you could probably make two hundred revenge movies like “Crazy Love” for the cost of making one “Ocean’s Thirteen,” and what’s more, “Crazy Love” is the superior picture. There are more ironies. “Ocean’s Thirteen” opened at far more theaters across the country than “Crazy Love.” Go figure. And what’s more, “Ocean’s Thirteen” doesn’t even have the kind of dramatic twist that “Crazy Love” has!

“Ocean’s” does have entertainment value, but it simply doesn’t have the kind of bang for the buck that the producers would hope for, though given the marketing machine it will probably recover its investment. The plot is not only highly improbable, which is OK. This is not a documentary. But like “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” it’s unnecessarily convoluted.

The script by Brian Koppelman and David Levien, given life by director Steven Soderbergh, is played not for money this time but to get payback from a villain for what he did to a friend. Casino owner Willy Bank (Al Pacino) had shafted Reuben Tishokoff (Elliott Gould) out of a partnership so badly that Reuben suffered a coronary. This annoys Reuben’s best friend, Danny Ocean (George Clooney), who gathers together his pals to plot action against Bank. The plan has to go like clockwork. If it succeeds, they would bankrupt the nasty hotel and casino.

The most amusing and least technical plan involves the ruining of a stay by a hotel and restaurant reviewing (David Paymer), since Willy Bank depends on the man’s review to retain a coveted five-diamond rating for his hotel. To make sure he has the worst stay imaginable, the crew make sure that the food, the room and everything else in the reviewer’s life is such that he’d have been happier in a one-star motel in Tijuana. The most challenging plan which would be on a more technological scale–and highly implausible–involves the creation of an earthquake to drive away the entire clientele, which would require the rental of a drill used to dig the Chunnel connecting England with France. This would require millions in funding from Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), who requires in return that the team steal a necklace worth $250 million from a room on the top of the Bank Hotel, a room as difficult to penetrate as any in Istanbul’s Topkapi Palace.

For “Ocean’s Thirteen,” director Soderbergh has assembled the coolest collection of actors in Hollywood including Ellen Barkin, who stages a witty seduction scene with Matt Damon, while Brad Pitt presumably competes with George Clooney for GQ Man of the Year once again. Don Cheadle, Bernice Mac, Casey Affleck and Scott Caan round out the super-hip cast in an expensive, entertaining pic that’s far more style than substance, but who goes to the “Ocean’s” series for anything else?

Rated PG-13.    122 minutes   © 2007 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online

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Harvey Karten's Reviews

Review: Ocean's Thirteen

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