Ocean's 13

Danny, Rusty and their ever-growing squad of adorable con men are back for a third stroll down Frank’s Way and for my money, its the charm, the best of the bunch. Perhaps it was just a question of growing into the material, or perhaps Clooney and Soderbergh finally got the right writers in Brian Koppelman and David Levien. You might think the key was finally getting the right antagonist in Al Pacino’s Willie Bank since Andy Garcia (sorry dude) was never really more than a second-choice Pacino in the first two flicks, which is made clear here by comparison, but I don’t think so.

No, Pacino never seemed to be fully occupying this role; maybe he was preoccupied with his upcoming title role in Salvador Dali & I? Side note: that film is directed by Andrew Niccol, a very different thing from his previous movie, Nick Cage’s Lord of War. Anyway, Al has two key scenes that bookend the film, the first with Elliot Gould that sets the events here in motion and the latter when he confronts George Clooney after the scheme has done its damage.

For me the real credit goes to the writers, Soderbergh and Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon as the key players in getting Gould’s money back, really good bits by Casey Affleck and Scott Caan once again playing the runts of the pack who put in some of the key elements (especially the scenes with Affleck at the Mexican dice factory channeling Norma Rae), and Julian Sands as lifelong battling security geeks. Don Cheadle and Bernie Mac never really rev their engines and the same is true for Vincent Cassel reprising the Fox.

Damon finally gets to trot out the Nose, working over Ellen Barkin (Pacino’s top assistant) who, it turns out, is a cougar, and Bob Einstein (better known as Super Dave Osborne) is the Damon character parent who shows up as a (fake) cop to bail out the boy. Carl Reiner does an upper crust Brit act to make Pacino think he’s the hotel award judge but really David Paymer is the judge and the 13 give him an unbelievably hard time to ensure the new hotel does not join Bank’s other properties in winning the Five Diamonds (but make it up to Paymer at the last).

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