Movie Review: Ocean's Thirteen

Movie Title: Ocean's Thirteen
Starring: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Scott Caan, Casey Affleck, Bernie Mac, Carl Reiner, Ellen Barkin, Eddie Izzard, Andy Garcia and Al Pacino.
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Genre: Comedy/Crime
My Rating: 8/10

So I'm finally back from a 4-week vacation and found some time to catch up with blogging movie reviews. O-13 was a good film, entertaining and consistently funny. Maybe not as many wisecracks as the first film, but as good as a "threequel" can get.

The movie summarizes as Danny Ocean's (Clooney) crew of crooks and grifters decide to take revenge on casino owner and millionaire Willie Banks (Pacino) for forcefully taking possession of a senior member of the crew's (Elliot Gould) share in a new casino at Las Vegas. Running short of funds, the crew takes a loan from their former (and possibly current) foe Terry Benedict (Garcia), who also conveniently has a personal grudge against Banks. In need of further technical assistance, they also recruit the brit computer genius Roman Nagel (Izzard) - to complete the thirteen.

George Clooney and Brad Pitt show their seniority and maturity, yet look much older than in the previous two movies. Matt Damon's character is given maturity too, with more responsibilities including playing decoy to distract Bank's right hand woman (Barkin). The others played their short but significant roles rather well. Bringing in French actor Vincent Cassel to continue playing Andy Garcia's acrobatic pawn was a waste, in my opinion. The biggest waste was probably of Mr. Pacino himself, playing a TV actor's role as a movie baddie.

Otherwise, setting that backdrop in Las Vegas again, and showing a different strategy in exploiting the new casino without exactly robbing it was interesting and well planned. This movie could make a dignified, non-disaster, end to the series.

8/10. Try not to expect too much. Especially with no Julia Roberts playing herself, nor Ms. Zeta Jones who distracted me too much from the story in O12.