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Ocean's Thirteen
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Wikipedia article
'Ocean's Thirteen' (also written as 'Ocean's 13') is a 2007 American heist comedy film directed by Steven Soderbergh. It is the third installment in the 'Ocean's' franchise, and the sequel to 'Ocean's Twelve' (2004). The entire male cast reprised their roles from the previous installments, with Al Pacino and Ellen Barkin joining the cast, but Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta-Jones did not return.
Filming began in July 2006 in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, based on a script by Brian Koppelman and David Levien. The film was screened as an Out of Competition presentation at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, and was released on June 8, 2007 in the United States. The film was well-received and grossed $311 million worldwide.
Plot
Reuben Tishkoff builds a hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip; against advice from his friend and erstwhile criminal partner, Danny Ocean, Reuben involves himself with investor and casino mogul Willy Bank, whose thugs strongarm Reuben into signing over his ownership stake. Tishkoff suffers a heart attack and becomes bedridden. Ocean offers Bank a chance to set things right, given his long history in Las Vegas and the fact that he "shook Sinatra's hand", but Bank refuses and completes construction of the hotel, renamed "The Bank". To avenge Tishkoff, Ocean gathers his partners-in-crime and plans to ruin Bank on the opening night of the hotel.
The crew develops a plan with two objectives:
* Prevent The Bank from winning the prestigious Five Diamond Award, which all of Bank's previous hotels have won. Saul Bloom will stand in as the anonymous Diamond reviewer, while Ocean and his associates treat the real reviewer horribly.
* Rig all of the casino's games to pay out millions in winnings; Bank's casino has to make $500 million in the first quarter in order to stay open, otherwise he would have to cede control of the casino to the gaming board. While they can implement various rigging mechanisms into the casino, Danny and his crew know they would be stopped by The Greco, a state-of-the-art computer system that monitors the gamblers' biometric responses and predicts when cheating is happening.
To disrupt the Greco, they plan to use a magnetron disguised as a new cell phone as a gift to Bank. They also obtain the drilling machine used to bore the Channel Tunnel to simulate an earthquake under the casino, ensuring that Bank will implement safety protocols to evacuate the premises. Their plan on opening night is to have Bank inadvertently disrupt Greco by using his new phone, initiate their rigged machines as well as dealers on their payroll, and then simulate the earthquake to force the evacuation; and have players leave with their winnings.
Shortly before opening night, the drill breaks down. The team is forced to ask Terry Benedict, their previous target, for funds to buy a replacement. Benedict offers the funds for a portion of his share of the take since he dislikes Bank and demands that Ocean also steal Bank's private diamond collection in celebration of his Five Diamond Awards. The jewels are valued at over $250 million and secured in a case at the top of the casino. Ocean has Linus Caldwell get romantically close to Bank's assistant Abigail Sponder to gain access to the case. Secretly, Benedict contracts master thief Franois "The Night Fox" Toulour to intercept the diamonds.
Ocean institutes the final part of the plan by having FBI agents on his payroll arrive at the hotel and arrest Livingston Dell on suspicion of rigging the card-shuffling machines, allowing them to be replaced with actual rigged ones. Another FBI agent arrests Linus for switching the diamonds with fakes. The agent takes Linus away and he turns out to be father Robert Caldwell whom Ocean enlisted. They try to evacuate from the roof but are intercepted by Toulour, who takes the diamonds and parachutes off the roof. However, Ocean anticipated this, and never had Linus make the switch. Linus and his father escape in a helicopter piloted by Basher, tearing the case of diamonds from the roof.
The earthquake is triggered and the players evacuate with millions of dollars of winnings. Ocean approaches a devastated Bank and tells him he is the mastermind behind everything and that they did it for Reuben. Ocean also reminds Bank that he cannot get revenge, since Danny knows all of Bank's associates and they prefer him over Bank. Also Bank cannot go to the police due to Bank's illegal activities. With their share of the winnings, Ocean's crew buy property on the Strip for Reuben to build his own casino. Ocean donates Benedict's $72 million portion of the take to charity in Benedict's name, forcing him to admit his philanthropy on broadcast television.
As Ocean, Rusty, and Linus prepare to depart from the airport, Rusty rigs one of the slot machines to allow the real Diamond reviewer to win $11 million as compensation for how they treated him.
Cast
The Thirteen
* George Clooney as Danny Ocean, an ex-con that comes up with a new heist involving The Bank.* Brad Pitt as Rusty Ryan
* Matt Damon as Linus Caldwell
* Andy Garca as Terry Benedict
* Don Cheadle as Basher Tarr
* Bernie Mac as Frank Catton
* Elliott Gould as Reuben Tishkoff, Danny's friend who plans to make a new casino until he gets swindled by Willy.
* Casey Affleck as Virgil Malloy
* Scott Caan as Turk Malloy
* Eddie Jemison as Livingston Dell
* Shaobo Qin as "The Amazing" Yen
* Carl Reiner as Saul Bloom
* Eddie Izzard as Roman Nagel, a master thief and friend of Danny who is brought in as a consultant.
Others
* Al Pacino as Willy Bank, a casino mogul who swindles Reuben of his money to further his hotel called The Bank.* Ellen Barkin as Abigail Sponder, Willy's personal assistant.
* Vincent Cassel as Franois Toulour, a master thief who Benedict hires to beat Danny to Bank's diamonds.
* Bob Einstein as Robert "Bobby" Caldwell, a legendary con artist and the father of Linus that was mentioned a lot in the first two movies who poses as an FBI agent.
* Olga Sosnovska as Debbie, the concierge at The Bank.
* David Paymer as the "V.U.P.", a Five Diamond reviewer who falls victim to the shenanigans of Danny's group.
* Angel Oquendo as Guard Ortega
* Julian Sands as Greco Montgomery
* Jerry Weintraub as Denny Shields
Production
In January 2006, it was reported that producers were in discussions about setting and shooting most of the film at the Wynn Las Vegas. Clooney had previously hoped to film it at his then-upcoming Las Ramblas Resort in Las Vegas, although the project would not have been ready in time for production. In March 2006, it was reported that the film would be shot in a fake casino that would be constructed on five Warner Bros. sound stages. Filming was expected to begin in Las Vegas and Los Angeles in July 2006. Al Pacino joined the cast in April 2006.
Location scouting took place in Las Vegas in mid-July 2006, with the Bellagio confirmed as a filming location, which was also used for scenes in 'Ocean's Eleven'. Filming in Las Vegas began on August 7, 2006, with scenes shot at McCarran International Airport and at a heliport. The following day, filming moved to the Palazzo resort, which was under construction at the time. Filming in Las Vegas concluded on August 9, 2006, after scenes involving Clooney, Pitt, Damon, and Garca were shot in an office at the back of the Bellagio. At that time, Clooney and producer Jerry Weintraub were considering premiering the film in Las Vegas. Another Las Vegas shoot was scheduled for September 2006, including additional filming at the Bellagio.
Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta-Jones did not appear in their respective roles as Tess Ocean and Isabel Lahiri, due to the actresses not wanting to participate in the movie without a significant part in the plot, which the script would not accommodate. This is referenced early in the movie when Ocean mentions it's 'not their fight' when questioned as to their absence by others in the group. Topher Grace, who cameoed in the previous two films as a heavily fictionalized version of himself, was unable to return due to reshoots on 'Spider-Man 3': he recalls that his planned cameo would have involved him having a conversation with Rusty while holding an Asian baby and never addressing where the baby came from.
Reception
Box office
The film did well on its first weekend, reaching the top spot at the North American box office. Despite opening in 250 more theaters than 'Ocean's Twelve', it had a slightly weaker opening weekend, than the former, pulling in $36 million, compared with 'Twelve' $39 million. By the end of December 2007, 'Ocean's Thirteen' had generated $117.2 million in box office domestically, and $311.4 million worldwide.Critical reception
On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, and an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, "'Ocean's Thirteen' reverts to the formula of the first installment, and the result is another slick and entertaining heist film." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 62 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.In his review for 'New York', David Edelstein wrote, "As the plotting gets knottier, [Soderbergh]'s technique gets more fluidthe editing jazzier, the colors more luscious, the whip-pans more whizbang. It's all anchored by Clooney, looking impudent, roguish, almost laughably handsome." Manohla Dargis, in her review for 'The New York Times', wrote, "Playing inside the box and out,
In his review for the 'Chicago Sun-Times', Roger Ebert gave the film two and a half stars out of four, writing "'Ocean's Thirteen' proceeds with insouciant dialogue, studied casualness, and a lotta stuff happening, none of which I cared much about because the movie doesn't pause to develop the characters, who are forced to make do with their movie-star personas." Peter Bradshaw, in his review for 'The Guardian', wrote, "Sometimes we go to split-screen, and sometimes whooaaa! two of the split-screen frames are funkily showing the same thing. It is all quite meaningless. As if in an experimental novel by B. S. Johnson, the scenes could be reshuffled and shown in any order and it would amount to the same thing. There is no human motivation and no romance."
Home video release
'Ocean's Thirteen' was released on DVD and Blu-ray in November 2007.
Future
Possible sequel
A sequel to 'Ocean's Thirteen' had been discussed as a possibility, up until the death of Bernie Mac. However, in June 2021, Don Cheadle revealed that Steven Soderbergh had been working on the concept of a sequel film. In July of the same year, Matt Damon also expressed interest in returning to the franchise, while stating that the project is up to Soderbergh.Spin-off
'Ocean's 8', a spin-off of the 'Ocean's Trilogy' films, was directed by Gary Ross and released in 2018. Sandra Bullock starred as Debbie Ocean, Danny Ocean's sister, opposite Cate Blanchett, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Rihanna Fenty, Sarah Paulson, Mindy Kaling, and Nora "Awkwafina" Lum, as a team who took part in a heist at the Met Gala.
References
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