The Honeymoon is over : Netglimse.com News

George Clooney, Elliott Gould and Matt Damon in Ocean's Thirteen

Ground zero for the boyish frolics of Ocean's Thirteen is a fabulous hotel and casino complex of red glass and steel, rising out of Las Vegas like strands of DNA.

Called The Bank, after its treacherous owner Willy Bank (a desiccated Al Pacino), it's a dazzling feat of human ingenuity. It's also completely fake.

Much like the movie, an exercise in stylish bravado that is as substantial as a catfight between supermodels. If winks were gold and smirks were diamonds, Ocean's Thirteen would have more booty than Capt. Jack's galleon.

Director Steven Soderbergh trifles for a third time with Armani-clad conman Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his code-talking brothers in larceny. But whereas Ocean's Twelve attempted novelty by moving from Vegas to Europe, Ocean's Thirteen lazily settles for a rehash of the main scam of Ocean's Eleven.

That being to hoodwink the proprietor of a Vegas casino out of his soft-earned money, with a drawn-out heist that makes 007 movies seem Spartan by comparison.

This time, sigh, it's personal (although Ocean's Eleven was, too). Vegas mentor Reuben (Elliott Gould), who bankrolled Danny's previous two capers, falls prey to the malevolence of erstwhile partner Bank, who stabs people in the front so he can watch them suffer. Reuben is left in financial peril and at death's door from a heart attack.

Enter Danny, Rusty (Brad Pitt), Linus (Matt Damon), Basher (Don Cheadle) and the rest of Ocean's swells – minus the fabulous femmes played by Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta-Jones in previous instalments. A single line writes them out: "It's not their fight."

This kind of economy at the outset, plus the powerful payback/loyalty motivation, could lead the gullible to think that for once, an Ocean's movie might actually be disciplined.

No such luck in this "bring-you-down town," as Frank Sinatra croons on the soundtrack, his legendary binding handshake also being part of the film's Vegas mythos. Soderbergh and screenwriters Brian Koppelman and David Levien are consumed by a Goldbergian impulse to make simple things complex.

Elaborate set-ups lead to minor gags. Such as a Mexican side-trip for battling brothers Virgil and Turk (Casey Affleck and Scott Caan). They're sent to infiltrate the low-wage factory that makes the dice for The Bank, all the better to rig the bones. They end up starting a worker's revolution, a digression that's about as funny as it sounds. Wouldn't it have been easier to just bribe the pit boss, as Danny does a few scenes later?

Meanwhile, check out the Byzantine break-in planned by techno-geek Basher (Cheadle). He seeks to create an artificial earthquake beneath The Bank, to knock out a supposedly infallible security system called Greco. Making the Earth move requires the drilling machines used to dig the Chunnel, plus a $36 million loan from Danny's archenemy Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia). The phrase "it can't be done" soon becomes tiresome, and pointless.

I have to grudgingly allow Ocean's Thirteen one dubious achievement. If the object of the exercise really is to make things as difficult as possible, so as to make Danny and the boys seem all the more clever for breaking The Bank without losing a cufflink, then it succeeds handsomely on that score, even if it does take forever.

Still, as Rusty complains so eloquently, "Jeez, could you make it any more complicated?"

The best jokes in Ocean's Thirteen are the simplest ones. Such as when Rusty catches Danny getting teary-eyed over an Oprah segment about a camp for disadvantage children – a gag that gets an even funnier second act, right before the credits roll.

The movie is lamentably lacking in estrogen, despite the presence of Ellen Barkin as Bank's rapacious assistant Abigail.

The opportunity to rekindle Sea of Love sparks between the reunited Barkin and Pacino is wasted, the seduction being left to Matt Damon's fumbling Linus.

Barkin gets so little screen time, and generates so little heat with Damon, she should consider suing Soderbergh for coitus interruptus. (At least she's in the movie; her part in Ocean's Twelve made only the cutting-room floor.)

By my count there's at least three subplots too many in Ocean's Thirteen, and a good half hour of its 2:02 running time that could be cut for fun and profit.

I'm also unsure about the math of the gang members – the poster shows 12 Ocean bros, if you include former foe Terry Benedict. Who amongst the crowd of other players is the 13th member, exactly?

But there I go again, looking for a room key in a hotel made of smoke and mirrors.