Ocean's Thirteen (DVD)

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If they keep adding big names to the cast list with each successive picture, they're going to run out of stars before long.

Let's begin with a little history. In 1960 Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack pals made a comedy caper called "Ocean's 11" (or "Ocean's Eleven," since the opening titles used both numerals and letters). The movie was not very good, but it gave Sinatra and his cronies something to do in Vegas during the day while they were performing there at night, and audiences seemed to like watching the entertainers enjoying themselves in the film.

Flash forward about forty years to 2001, and director Steven Soderbergh remakes the picture as "Ocean's Eleven," getting the classiest guy in Hollywood, George Clooney, to do the Sinatra role and surrounding him with the most prominent actors he could find. The newer movie was considerably better than the older one, and the new cast seemed to be having at least as good a time as the old cast. Needless to say, the remake proved popular, so Soderbergh did what every Hollywood director does: He made a sequel. "Ocean's Twelve" in 2004 added yet more big names to the cast and exaggerated the plot to the point of absurdity. Perhaps because the story was so ridiculous and scattered, it didn't fare as well at the box office or with critics as the first one did; still, I enjoyed it best of all because I thought its breezy style, buoyant characters, and clever repartee harked back to the original better than the previous entry and because the whole thing seemed to poke more fun at itself.

Anyway, what did Soderbergh do when his second film didn't quite live up to expectations? In 2007 he made a sequel to the sequel to the remake of the original. In "Ocean's Thirteen" he tightened the plot line, added the best antagonist yet, and came up with a mediocre picture. The fact is, I think the cast was just a little tired of it all by now. Nevertheless, it's not a bad movie, just a remarkably weightless one that remains appealing mainly to see so many stars in one place in an ensemble cast.

The usual suspects are back in action: We've got Clooney again as the leader of the crew, Danny Ocean. Then we've got Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, Carl Reiner, Elliott Gould, Eddie Jemison, Shaobo Qin, Andy Garcia, Eddie Izzard, Vincent Cassel, and producer Jerry Weintraub. But in this act the filmmakers have added even more big-timers to the cast roster: Al Pacino, Ellen Barkin, Julian Sands, and Oprah Winfrey among them.

The movie starts right out with one of the old crew up to his regular mischief, robbing a bank by burrowing through a next-door building. But there is more important business at hand: Reuben (Gould) has had a heart attack. It seems that Reuben invested all of his considerable fortune in a Las Vegas casino, partnering with a big-shot billionaire snake named Willie Bank (Pacino). They intended to call the casino the Midas, with each man a joint owner, but Bank double-crossed him, leaving him with nothing. Bank even changed the name of the place to the Bank Casino, and it was enough to put poor old Reuben into a coma.

One thing you know from watching these buddy movies is that you don't do dirty to one of the gang. These friends stick together, work together, and get even together. So Ocean and his pals set out to ruin Bank by bankrupting his new casino and stealing his most prized possessions, a case full of diamonds awarded to him for opening some of the biggest, most-fabulous hotels on the planet.

And that's it. In the movie's favor, Clooney is as charming as ever as Danny Ocean. Here's one of his best exchanges: Willie Bank threatens him, saying, "This town might have changed, but not me. I know people highly invested in my survival, and they are people who really know how to hurt in ways you can't even imagine." Danny casually responds, "Well, I know all the guys that you'd hire to come after me, and they like me better than you." The movie has several other good, humorous lines like this one, but if it had even more, it would have been funnier.

Matt Damon as the nerdy Linus Caldwell gets a juicy bit late in the picture, and Andy Garcia as Ocean's mark in the previous picture comes back to join the team this time. Remember, Garcia plays a rival casino owner who has as much to gain by Bank's downfall as anybody. However, the other returning stars don't get much space. Poor Brad Pitt hardly shows his face, and when he does, it's often in disguise. No Julia Roberts this time out, either.