Ocean's Thirteen

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Ocean's Thirteen
Directed by	Steven Soderbergh
Produced by	Jerry Weintraub
Written by	Brian Koppelman David Levien
Narrated by	George Clooney
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
Music by	David Holmes
Cinematography	Steven Soderbergh
Editing by	Stephen Mirrione
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	June 8, 2007
Running time	122 min.
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$85,000,000
Gross revenue	$309,154,724
Preceded by	Ocean's Twelve
Official website
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Ocean's Thirteen is a 2007 film directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring an ensemble cast. It is the third (and reportedly final)^[1] 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 Ocean's Eleven. 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.

This film was rated PG-13 by the MPAA; it was released on June 8, 2007,^[2] although it was released in several countries in the Middle East on June 6.^[3] Filming began in July 2006 in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, based on a script by Brian Koppelman and David Levien.^[4]

[edit] Plot synopsis

Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould) and Las Vegas' most hated businessman, Willy Bank (Al Pacino), are building a new hotel and casino in 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 deny Bank's new hotel the prestigious Five Diamond Award, the highest distinction granted to a hotel (all of his other hotels have already received this award). Saul poses as Kensington Chubb, the Five Diamond reviewer. He discreetly gets Bank's attention by dropping his review folder. Believing Saul to be the reviewer and thus a VIP, Bank orders his entire staff to see to Saul's every need. Meanwhile, the team engineers a series of mishaps for the real reviewer (David Paymer), undercover and a self-described "very unimportant person." As befitting his lowly status, 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 very unimportant person.

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 manages 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 for better pay. Sending in Virgil's brother, Turk doesn't work, as Turk only joins the strike. Finally, the team agrees to the workers' demands and the strike ends. Meanwhile, 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 rigged or legitimate. 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 decide to 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 an earthquake again 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 (Andy Garcia). 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. When Bank wins a Five Diamond Award he purchases a real diamond necklace as a trophy, keeping them in a glass case in his penthouse. Though the team had considered stealing the diamonds earlier, but decided it would be near-impossible to get through the security in the case, they agree to do so under duress.

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 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 rigged the machines, but the replacements for the "rigged" machines were the actual rigged ones. From Livingston's fingerprints, the casino obtains a list of known associates: Ocean's Eleven. 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 team calls Bank's brand new cell phone, which, unbeknownst to him, contains a magnetron. 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. 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 are fakes; shortly after, the team circumvents the impregnable display case by simply stealing it from the hotel (via explosives and a helicopter), while a bemused Toulour watches from the ground.

Danny confronts Bank, telling him he broke the rules and needs to learn from what he's done; he also states that Bank obviously isn't going to go to the police and that any threats Bank makes would be empty, because "I know all the guys that you'd hire to come after me... they like me better than you." He also reveals Saul's deception, though he doesn't comment on the actual reviewer. Reuben is given the deed to 4.6 acres of land on the Las Vegas Strip. Danny then meets Benedict at his office, confronts him about hiring Toulour, and 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 later appears on The Oprah Winfrey Show. He announces that he donated the money because he was touched by these kids. The act makes him seem like a humanitarian, and he says he's just following Oprah's example. Finally, Danny, Rusty, and Linus meet at McCarran International Airport and go their separate ways. It is shown that Linus has finally gotten a "part" in his father's work. After they have left, Rusty gives up his seat on one last rigged slot machine at the airport to the beleaguered hotel reviewer who wins $11 million as compensation for what he went through.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Ocean and the 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

[edit] Others

• Al Pacino as Willy Bank
• Vincent Cassel as François "The Nightfox" Toulour
• Ellen Barkin as Abigail Sponder
• Noureen DeWulf as Mirage (Frank's main Expo girl)
• 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

[edit] Reaction

[edit] 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.^[5][6] 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.^[7]

[edit] 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.^[8][9] Several critics^{[citation needed]} consider this a "come back", because Ocean's Twelve did not get the same acclaim.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Ocean's Thirteen

• Official Site
• Ocean's Thirteen at the Internet Movie Database
• Ocean's Thirteen at Rotten Tomatoes
• Ocean's Thirteen Roundtable on Time.com (a division of Time Magazine)
• Camp To Belong - the charity highlighted at the end of the film