I thought someone had posted on this already, but I couldn’t find anything. Maybe I’m thinking of reynolds’s comments about Ocean’s 12. Or maybe our new search function sucks. Anyway, I can’t even find reynolds’s stuff on any of the Ocean films, which is perhaps just as well. I’ll try to recreate his comments from memory. I think you liked 11 and 12, is that right reynolds? Just good fun, all style and no substance but so what, actors are clearly having fun?
Well, 13 is certainly stylish. I especially liked the first 30 seconds, with (I think) Neil Richardson’s “The Riviera Affair” playing over a retro-style Warner Brothers logo. I was hoping the remaining 100 minutes or so would stay in that spirit since, after all, we’re in Las Vegas. But Soderbergh’s Vegas was kind of uninteresting, both aurally and visually. But overall, not a bad flick. Pacino, as Willie Bank, is decent, though I think his character should have had more appeal. I enjoyed how nasty he was in the opening. But his character has a slow leak and all his charm and (potential) likable villainy is eclipsed by the encanto gigante of Clooney and crew.
The heist is really nothing much to speak of; they’re really just troubleshooting. The job is simply this: ruin Bank. Make mayhem on both the soft and grand opening of his new luxury hotel–of which Reuben was supposed to be part owner, but was rubbed out by Bank, hence the heist. Yes, this is really nothing more than a revenge plot. But what bothered me was how little Bank was able to fight back. All he did was run around the casino, throw his hands in the air, and bark orders (“get us back online!” “get fingerprints!” and so on).
I found troublesome Ellen Barkin’s character: Abigail Sponder. From the get-go we are supposed to loathe her–particularly since she’s a woman of a certain age but still sexual. This point is made explicit in the film, when the “FBI” bust in on her when she’s being seduced (with the help of a pheromone nicknamed “The Gilroy”) by Matt Damon in a prosthetic nose. I imagine (or I hope) this role that was turned down by many actresses. It’s so demeaning.
My wife and I watched this movie in, of all places, Mexico City. Little did we expect that that a good portion of the film would depict workers at a Mexican dice-making factory who go on strike. The strike, of course, threatens to spoil Ocean’s plans, which makes him and his pals seem more corporate than con. What I found fascinating was the audience’s response to the depictions of the Mexican workers and, especially, Virgil, who is posing as a Mexican worker (guess what? he dons a cheesey moustache, drinks a lot of beer, and then waxes punch-drunk poetically about Zapata). Nearly every second of the Mexico scenes prompted groans, sighs, and sneers from the largely middle & upper-middle class Mexican audience (we were in a neighborhood called Polanco). It’s not that I haven’t put any thought into the way Hollywood stereotypes other cultures, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie in the very same country whose people the movie is stereotyping. Thousands and thousands of feet of film roll past our eyes each week–but do we really realize what we’re watching? Do we realize how nauseatingly arrogant we can be?
No spoiler here, really. Of course the Cloon-goons win. And the film ends with what is supposed to be a touching farewell. More like “no touching.” Wouldn’t these men be much happier if they just slept with each other? I know we would be if they did.
you meant to say “we would be if we did,” john.
I wrote a slightly sardonic response about 13 here (comment #45). I felt awkward with the Mexican scenes as well (especially the punch line when that particular plot thread runs its course).
i liked the mexican scenes! and i loved the punch line! (you mean the one when g. clooney proposes sending them a check, right?). in a movie that’s so much about taking, recycling, re-taking, and throwing away large amounts of flashy and unnecessary cash, any reminder whatsoever of the “third world” is fine by moi.
Well, yeah I guess if that moment underscores the financial inequity between first and second/third world labor then the joke is on us . . . but it played as if the joke was on the “stupid” (or should I say uniformed) Mexican workers. Does that make sense? What I got was . . . “that’s all they want, hell I’ll write them a check and get this inconvienence out of the way. Mexican labor negotiations simply become an obstacle in our boy’s pursuit to seek revenge.
I haven’t seen the new installment–I certainly will, but I’m in no rush. I had enjoyed the first one, but it was cotton candy: a sweet enough rush, but it didn’t stick in the mouth for long. I like a good heist film, I like watching actors strut around in strange supporting character roles.
But what I LOVED about the second film was that the plot, which also got convoluted around heists, seemed not just beside the point but actively, teasingly, playfully ignored. (There’s a sequence where they are setting up for a heist, then we don’t see the actual event — instead jumping to investigator Zeta-Jones and see her hearing about the heist, and then, after some noodling discussion, she imagines it and we see the heist, in fast motion, clipped down to some bare-bones acts, with great David Holmes music blaring over the events.) The whole movie seemed like a love affair with these kinds of movies, pop music piped in from the Euro past or reimagined by the astounding Holmes, and Soderbergh filming with freezes and the zip of the New Wave, and it closes on a close-up, freezing Zeta-Jones in an open-mouthed-unrestrained laugh. From what I gather, version III is an “apology” of sorts for II, restoring some sense of narrative coherence, cleaning up the untidy fun of cinematic excess. Which seems such a shame, I’ll wait for the dvd.
As to the Mexican thing, I do remember one great scene from the first film, where as part of the con Bernie Mac needs to stage a confrontation with Matt Damon, and they do so by staging a hostile engagement around race. Which seemed awfully damn sly and smart, for a film about nothing.
Meh. I liked some of the music, and for about an hour I was diverted. Then I was bored. I’d rather watch 12 again.