Ocean's Thirteen

Ocean's Thirteen
File:Oceans13Poster1.jpg
Directed by	Steven Soderbergh
Written by	Brian Koppelman David Levien
Produced by	Jerry Weintraub
Starring	George Clooney Brad Pitt Matt Damon Andy Garcia Scott Caan Don Cheadle Casey Affleck Elliott Gould Bernie Mac Al Pacino Ellen Barkin Eddie Izzard
Narrated by	George Clooney
Cinematography	Steven Soderbergh
Edited by	Stephen Mirrione
Music by	David Holmes
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release dates	June 8, 2007
Running time	113 min.
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$85,000,000
Box office	$311,312,624

Ocean's Thirteen is a 2007 film directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring an ensemble cast. It is the third (and reportedly final) in the Soderbergh series following the 2004 sequel Ocean's Twelve and the 2001 film Ocean's Eleven, which itself was a remake of the 1960 Rat Pack film of the same name. All of the cast members reprised their roles from the previous installments except for Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Al Pacino and Ellen Barkin joined the cast as their new targets.

It was released on June 8, 2007 (known as World Ocean Day), in the United States, although it was released in several countries in the Middle East on June 6. Filming began in July 2006 in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, based on a script by Brian Koppelman and David Levien.

Plot

Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould) and Las Vegas' most hated businessman, Willy Bank (Al Pacino), are building a new hotel and casino in Las Vegas. After having secured crucial deals for Bank, Reuben is strongarmed into signing over his share to him. Bank leaves him with just a $10,000 poker chip and Reuben notices that Bank has changed the name of the hotel from "The Midas" to his own name, "The Bank". Reuben suffers a heart attack from the stress related to his financial loss. The remainder of Ocean's Eleven, Danny Ocean (George Clooney), Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt), Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon), Basher Tarr (Don Cheadle), Frank Catton (Bernie Mac), Virgil Malloy (Casey Affleck), Turk Malloy (Scott Caan), "The Amazing" Yen (Shaobo Qin), Saul Bloom (Carl Reiner), and Livingston Dell (Eddie Jemison)– Tess and Isabel are left out by the simple explanation that this is "not their fight"– gather around his bed and are told that Reuben could survive, if he had something to live for. They offer Bank a chance to reinstate Reuben, referred to as a "Billy Martin", which he turns down. They then decide to ruin Bank in two ways.

First, the team decides to prevent Bank's new hotel from winning the prestigious Five Diamond Award, the highest distinction granted to a hotel (all of his other hotels have already received this award). Saul, under the name "Kensington Chubb", discreetly posing as the reviwer, gets Bank's attention by dropping his review folder exposing the "Five Diamond" logo. Believing Saul to be the reviewer and thus a VIP, Bank orders his entire staff to see to Saul's every need. Meanwhile, the "Ocean's" team engineers a series of mishaps for the real reviewer (David Paymer), a self-described "very unimportant person." Thanks to Ocean's crew, he is shown to a filthy room, gets food poisoning at a hotel restaurant, and is finally evicted by rude, brutish security guards (Virgil and Turk in disguise). After being evicted the reviewer approaches Bank and thanks him for having him evicted. Bank, of course, ignores this "nobody."

Second, they will rig the casino so that all the players (supplied by Denny Shields (Jerry Weintraub)) win huge amounts of money on the opening night, so that Bank loses ownership of the hotel as he is expected by his board of investors to make $500 million in the first quarter to maintain control. Virgil is supposed to rig the casino dice at the source, a Mexican factory, so that the team can flip and stop them at the table using devices disguised as Zippo cigarette lighters. However, appalled by the dreadful working conditions in the factory and low pay, Virgil leads the workers in a strike. Virgil's brother Turk comes to Mexico to help, but Turk only joins the strike. When it was realized that the workers' meager demands was a lump sum of $38,000, the team agrees to write a post-dated check for the amount and the strike ends. They succeed in rigging the dice. Meanwhile, with the added help of new Ocean's team member Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), Bank is tricked into buying a rigged domino table run by Frank, posing as a domino dealer and his co assistant Mirage posing as an Expo girl. A slot machine is rigged to pay out a huge progressive jackpot once Rusty activates it and lets another player take over. Livingston and a twelfth man, Roman Nagel (Eddie Izzard), rig card machines.

To ensure that all games played at the casino are fair and not tampered with, Bank has installed a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence security system known as The Greco. The computer reads biofeedback data from players in real time, enabling it to determine whether a win was legitimate or expected by the player. Nagel informs Ocean and Rusty that The Greco is housed in an impregnable room, and that only something like a natural disaster or a magnetron could cause it to shut down. Ocean and Rusty subsequently rent a tunneling machine that would simulate a localized earthquake hitting the hotel, which would effectively shut down The Greco for three minutes and twenty seconds while it reboots. To ensure that all the players will leave the casino with their winnings instead of gambling until they run out, the team plans to simulate a second earthquake to scare everyone into cashing out and leaving. However, the drill, which had been used to dig the Channel Tunnel from the English side, breaks down. To purchase the only available replacement, the drill that had been used from the French side, the twelve make a deal with their old enemy, Terry Benedict. Benedict will put up the money only if the team makes him senior partner and double his investment of $36 million for the drill, and also steal Bank's four prized diamond necklaces (Personal trophies purchased for winning the Five Diamond Award) kept in a glass case in his penthouse. Though the team had considered stealing the diamonds earlier, they decided it would be near-impossible to get through the security that bank designed to protect them. Nonetheless, having no other choice, they agree to Benedict's demand.

Yen the acrobat is introduced as Mr. Weng, a high-roller and rich businessman. Linus, disguised with a distinctive nose, acts as his business manager. Yen infiltrates the elevator shafts and air conditioning ducts, but discovers that accessing the diamonds from the floor or ceiling will be borderline impossible. Instead, Linus uses a pheromone patch called "the Gilroy" to seduce Bank's hotel manager, Abigail Sponder (Ellen Barkin), who leads him to the diamond room for more privacy.

Livingston is seemingly caught "rigging" the card machines by the FBI; an agent (Bob Einstein) tells Bank that replacement machines will be sent over by the manufacturer; However, Livingston hadn't actually tampered with the machines: the replacements were the actual rigged ones. From Livingston's fingerprints, Bank's security team obtains a list of known associates: All of the Ocean's Eleven team. This is subequently sent to Bank's office. Basher, dressed up as the stunt man for the hotel's opening show, distracts Bank while Virgil and Turk modify the downloaded names and faces so that the team's cover is preserved.

Meanwhile, the drill is activated, causing a small earthquake - which fails to shut down the Greco. Concerned, Bank hurries down to the Greco's secure command center. Bank gets a call on his new cell phone (procured as a gift by Sponder), which should be impossible in the reinforced room. Unfortunately for Bank and the Greco, the phone (which was actually supplied to Sponder by Ocean's crew) was modified to include a magnetron, activated with a false call: "Plan B." This shuts down The Greco and it takes three minutes and twenty seconds to reboot. The rigged games are all activated. Team members in the casino, including Danny, Rusty, Saul, Yen, Frank, and a recovered Reuben, all make sure that everyone who plays at the casino wins, so the casino pays out millions. After a montage of everyone winning at the rigged games, the Greco reboots. Virgil and Turk activate the tunnelling machine again and another earthquake is simulated, prompting everyone in the casino to cash in their chips and evacuate, taking all their "winnings" with them.

Upstairs, the FBI agent abruptly interrupts Linus and Abigail and arrests Linus. As Linus is led away, the agent is revealed to be his successful criminal father Bobby Caldwell, who is also in on the scheme. When the two reach the rooftop helipad to leave, Francois Toulour (Vincent Cassel), alias "the Night Fox", the antagonist from Ocean's Twelve, reveals himself, having followed the whole crew from the start in partnership with Benedict. At gunpoint, Linus hands Toulour the stolen diamonds. The gun, as he finds out shortly, was not loaded. Toulour escapes, but the diamonds Linus handed over were actually the fake ones; shortly after, the team circumvents the impregnable display case by simply stealing the entire casing from the hotel, along with a good-sized chunk of the ceiling, with the help of explosives and a helicopter.

Danny confronts Bank, telling him he broke the rules and needs to learn from what he's done. Saul deliberately walks past the two and Bank realizes that "Kensington Chubb" was not actually the Five-Star hotel reviewer. Bank tries to threaten Danny, saying he knows people, highly invested in his survival, who really know how to hurt. Danny responded calmly, saying "I know all the guys that you'd hire to come after me... they like me better than you." Danny then says that he figures Bank would not go to the police. Ocean and Saul leave the casino and Bank watches the helicopter fly away with his diamonds. Right after, Toulour also sees the helicopter, realizing once again that he stole a replica. Minutes later, back at their place, the guys watch Bank's fireworks go off. Danny gives Reuben the deed to 4.6 acres of land on the Las Vegas Strip. The next day, Danny meets Benedict at his office, confronts him about hiring Toulour. As punishment for Benedict's double-crossing, Danny informs him that he donated Benedict's share of the money to "Camp to Belong", a camp for under-privileged kids, in Benedict's name. Benedict was obviously not pleased.

Days later, in the McCarran International Airport, Danny, Rusty, and Linus watch as Benedict gives an interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show, announcing that he donated the money because he was touched by the kids. The three go their separate ways. Linus, the first to leave, has finally gotten a "part" in his father's work. Danny is the second to leave. After they have left, Rusty decides to hit the slots one last time. He starts to put some coins in the machine, but decides to give up his seat to the beleaguered hotel reviewer who happened to be at the airport. The machine turns out to be rigged and the hotel reviewer wins $11 million, and Rusty walks off smiling while a crowd gathers. (this is signifigant also because Saul and Turk had earlier discussed how he would get the "Susan B. Anthony" at the airport, with Saul claiming he would undergo the reviewer's plight if he were paid 11 million dollars)

Cast

Ocean's Thirteen

• George Clooney as Danny Ocean
• Brad Pitt as Rusty Ryan
• Matt Damon as Linus Caldwell
• Don Cheadle as Basher Tarr
• Bernie Mac as Frank Catton
• Casey Affleck as Virgil Malloy
• Scott Caan as Turk Malloy
• Shaobo Qin as "The Amazing" Yen
• Carl Reiner as Saul Bloom
• Eddie Jemison as Livingston Dell
• Elliott Gould as Reuben Tishkoff
• Eddie Izzard as Roman Nagel
• Andy Garcia as Terry Benedict

Others

• Al Pacino as Willy Bank
• Vincent Cassel as François "The Nightfox" Toulour
• Ellen Barkin as Abigail Sponder
• Bob Einstein as Bobby Caldwell
• Olga Sosnovska as Debbie
• David Paymer as the V.U.P. (the real Five Diamond reviewer)
• Julian Sands as Greco Montgomery
• Angel Oquendo as Guard Ortega
• Jerry Weintraub as Denny Shields

Cultural references

• The opening logo sequence was an homage to the opening of WOR-TV's late afternoon movie program, The 4'O-Clock Movie, which aired during the 70s and 80s. In fact, the theme song to the program (The Riviera Affair by Neil Richardson) was used in the opening sequence. Also, the logos were blue, which referenced the opening logos in the first film of the remake trilogy.

• There are two scenes, worth mentioning, that directly reference The Godfather. The first scene takes place as Danny Ocean initially tries to strong arm Willy Bank early in the film. Danny explains himself to Bank by stating "What I want... what is most important to me is that Reuben's share gets restored"; A direct reference to the scene in The Godfather where Michael Corleone (another character portrayed by Al Pacino) is meeting with Virgil Solozzo & Captain McCluskey.

• The next scene is when Danny and the crew are explaining to Reuben that they could not go through with the plan, due to their budget. Reuben says to Ocean "I hear cars coming and leaving, and Linus crying; why don't you tell me what everyone else seems to know," the exact words Vito Corleone said upon learning that his son, Santino Corleone, was killed.

• The golden Samsung cell phone is also an homage to the solid gold AT&T telephone passed around the table when Michael Corleone, Hyman Roth, and some other prominent American business leaders meet in Havana, Cuba to discuss their investments in The Godfather, Part II.

• There are at least four references made to the original Ocean's Eleven. When Willy Bank is screwing Reuben out of their deal, Reuben claims that they've both been around long enough to shake Sinatra's hand, and Tishkoff states that there's a code among guys who've done that. After the heist, Danny tells Bank that Willy shook Sinatra's hand and he should've known better. Shortly after this, when the Eleven are celebrating, the song This Town by Frank Sinatra is heard. Sinatra portrayed the original Danny Ocean in the 1960s version.

• Later on, when Rusty and Danny are trying to explain a soft opening to Saul, Saul claims that he went to the opening of the Flamingo and there were no "soft openings" back then. Also, Danny and Rusty are talking a few hours before the grand opening. Rusty reminisces about the old days of Vegas and mentions the Sands. The Sands and the Flamingo were two of the five casinos robbed in the original Ocean's Eleven.

• At the end of the film, when Rusty and Danny are about to go their separate ways in the airport, Rusty tells Danny to "keep the weight off in between next time". This is in reference to George Clooney's weight gain and loss between the filming of Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen. As a retort to this comment, Danny tells Rusty he should "settle down and have a couple kids". This is in reference to Brad Pitt marrying Angelina Jolie and adopting kids from foreign countries.

Reception

Box office performance

The film did well on its first weekend, reaching the top spot at the North American box office. Despite being opened in 250 more theaters than Ocean's Twelve, it had a slightly weaker opening weekend than the former, pulling in $36 million, compared to Twelve's $39 million opening weekend. As of December 30, 2007, Ocean's Thirteen has taken in $117.2 million in the U.S. alone. Overseas the film has made $194.2 million pushing its total worldwide gross to $311.4 million.

Critical reception

Critical reception to the movie has generally been positive with some critics liking the movie's style while others criticized it for being overly complex. Joel Siegel, in what would turn out to be his last review for Good Morning America, raved on the movie, saying that if it had been the first movie, there still would have been a sequel. On the movie Web site Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has received an overall 70% score, while on Yahoo! Movies it garnered an average B grade. In his review for New York, David Edelstein wrote, "As the plotting gets knottier, his technique gets more fluid—the editing jazzier, the colors more luscious, the whip-pans more whizbang. It’s all anchored by Clooney, looking impudent, roguish, almost laughably handsome". Manohla Dargis, in her review for the New York Times, wrote, "Playing inside the box and out, he has learned to go against the grain while also going with the flow. In Ocean’s Thirteen he proves that in spades by using color like Kandinsky and hanging a funny mustache on Mr. Clooney’s luscious mug, having become a genius of the system he so often resists". However, Roger Ebert wrote, in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, "Ocean's Thirteen proceeds with insouciant dialogue, studied casualness, and a lotta stuff happening, none of which I cared much about because the movie doesn't pause to develop the characters, who are forced to make do with their movie-star personas". Peter Bradshaw, in his review for The Guardian, wrote, "Sometimes we go to split-screen, and sometimes - whooaaa! - two of the split-screen frames are funkily showing the same thing. It is all quite meaningless. As if in an experimental novel by BS Johnson, the scenes could be reshuffled and shown in any order and it would amount to the same thing. There is no human motivation and no romance".

External links

• Official site
• Ocean's Thirteen at IMDb