Ocean’s Thirteen (2007)

Ocean’s Thirteen (2007)

6/10

Cast Listed Below

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

The crew is back together for one more gig, and this time they’re going after Willy Bank (Al Pacino). Ocean’s Thirteen is far better than Ocean’s Twelve and just a little below Ocean’s Eleven. But this movie brings back the old cast, adds two more to the Ocean’s Eleven lineup, and we see them put their skills together again in another wonderful matchup—this time against Al Pacino.

To me, what made this movie rise above and be cooler than Ocean’s Twelve is that we actually see the crew pull off a great heist against another casino owner. Unlike Ocean’s Twelve, we don’t have to wait until the end to discover they’ve already done it.

In addition to the old Ocean’s Eleven crew, which includes:

1. George Clooney as Danny Ocean
2. Bernie Mac as Frank Catton
3. Brad Pitt as Rusty Ryan
4. Elliott Gould as Reuben Tishkoff
5. Casey Affleck as Virgil Malloy
6. Scott Caan as Turk Malloy
7. Eddie Jemison as Livingston Dell
8. Don Cheadle as Basher Tarr
9. Shaobo Qin as "The Amazing" Yen
10. Carl Reiner as Saul Bloom
11. Matt Damon as Linus Caldwell

The crew also recruited the help of a technical expert, Roman Nagel (Eddie Izzard), and their old enemy, Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia).

Here’s what led to the new recruitment and the reunion of the old team:
Reuben went into a casino deal with Willy, even though everyone warned him not to. He believed that since both he and Willy had once shaken Sinatra’s hand (meaning they’d been around for a long time and should have mutual respect), Willy wouldn’t screw him. But Willy did screw him, and Reuben almost died of shock.

Danny, now furious, went to meet Willy and demanded he refund Reuben’s money—or else. But Willy refused, prompting Danny to call back his whole crew to wreck Willy as revenge. Roman was recruited for his technical expertise, which was needed to counter the new AI computer monitoring the casino, and Terry was brought in for funding.

Ocean’s Thirteen is a nice movie to end the Ocean’s series, though it’s sad that Tess Ocean (Julia Roberts) and Isabel Lahiri (Catherine Zeta-Jones) aren’t in this one.

Ocean’s Thirteen was both a critical and commercial success and will make you want to go back and watch Ocean’s Eleven again just to see the original crew at work. So, if you’ve started the Ocean’s series, don’t stop until you get to the end of it.