Ocean's Thirteen

Ocean's Thirteen sees the gang return to Vegas and return to form, writes Michael Dwyer

THREE years ago, all the life seemed to have been drained from this caper series in the tedious travelogue that was Ocean's Twelve, essentially an extended series of in-jokes that proved as lazy and self-indulgent as the Rat Pack's original Ocean's Eleven (1960), itself wildly overrated through hazy nostalgia.

Steven Soderbergh and the regular cast get back to basics, return to Las Vegas as the setting and, happily, return to form for Ocean's Thirteen, in which Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his team do what they do best, robbing an apparently impregnable casino against all the odds. This time they're not in it for the money, but for revenge.

Series newcomer Al Pacino enters into the spirit of the series with aplomb as their target, egomaniacal entrepreneur Willy Bank, who is in partnership with Ocean's mentor Reuben (Elliott Gould) in an extravagant Las Vegas casino project. Reuben has handled all the behind-the- scenes machinations, bribing officials and politicians to secure planning permission for the development and visas for its international chefs. If that happened here, Reuben might find himself the subject of a tribunal.

In Ocean's Thirteen he gets his comeuppance when the ruthless Bank casually double-crosses him and Reuben suffers a heart attack. "It helps if he has something to live for," advises his doctor.

Danny Ocean is happy to oblige, gathering his gang for an elaborate plan to sabotage Bank's opening night party, to fleece him in the process and to hit him where it hurts even more, by publicly embarrassing him and destroying his carefully cultivated image as an awards-laden hotelier.

The latter strategy involves putting a meticulously thorough, highly influential hotel reviewer (David Paymer) through a series of increasingly awful humiliations while Bank's staff shower attention on an impostor (Carl Reiner enjoying himself in a parody of a tweedy Englishman).

Several other Ocean team members don disguises for the scam. Rusty (Brad Pitt) wears glasses, a goatee and a wig as he pretends to be a scientist. Acrobat Yen (Shaobo Qin) poses as a billionaire gambler and Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon in a Mao jacket and fake nose) as his obsequious assistant assigned to seduce Bank's right-hand woman (Ellen Barkin).

Meanwhile, the gang's former nemesis, Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) becomes their unlikely ally this time out. Sympathising with the swindled Reuben, he remarks, "It's a charitable heist, if you will." And it is a remarkably intricate heist, as plotted by screenwriters Brian Koppleman and David Levien.

There are some implausible contrivances and gaping plot holes in their Ocean's Thirteen scenario, but the movie proceeds at such a vigorous rhythm under Soderbergh's nimble direction that there is barely time to care.

Familiarity breeds contentment as the large central cast interacts with the cohesion of a true ensemble and with a lightness of touch that ideally suits this souffle. It's almost as enjoyable to watch as it evidently was for them to make. Almost.