OCEAN’S 13

Rating: 5

OCEAN’S 13 is pure entertainment. As bright and shiny as perfectly restored vintage neon, it’s a throwback to an era when films could be fun without being stupid. When they could have a heart without being a cliché, and when guys who were just too cool for school ruled.

There’s a caper, of course, intricately plotted, meticulously put into motion, and full of the sort of surprises that keep the good guys, that would be Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and company, three steps ahead of the bad guy (Al Pacino at his vulgarian best), and two steps ahead of the audience. The difference being that the audience is having a good time, and the bad guy is going down for a fall that he never saw coming. He never even imagined could be coming.

This time the guys are capering in the name of payback. That would be for their pal Reuben (Eliot Gould), who against all reason got into business with Willie Bank (Pacino) to open the biggest, splashiest, and classiest casino on the Vegas Strip. He figured since they had both shook Sinatra’s hand back in the day, it would go down fair and square. While shaking the Chairman of the Board’s hand might mean something to Vegas denizens of a certain age, it obviously means nothing to Bank, who smoothly strong-arms Reuben into myocardial infarction while fleecing him of everything, including, and worst of all, his dream of being a Vegas player once again. Enter Danny Ocean, determined get revenge on Reuben’s behalf with a plan that is brilliant, complex, and completely mad. He’s not just going to rob Bank (as in break the Bank, get it?), he’s going to add insult to injury by making him a laughingstock despite a towering triple-helix of a casino that shines in the hot Nevada sun brightly enough to take out the retinas of the less wary.

Never mind the particulars of the machinations, though the device that dug the Chunnel, a computer that can detect duplicity and the fomenting of a small-scale revolution in Mexico. This is all about the battle of wits between Danny and Bank, with Rusty (Brad Pitt) keeping Danny in line, Linus (Matt Damon) still trying to impress his old man, Basher Tarr (Don Cheadle) moving heaven and earth (more or less), Saul Bloom (Carl Reiner) hamming it up on purpose and to excellent effect, Livingston Dell (Eddie Jemison cute as a bug’s ear through a perpetual haze of flop sweat) bumbling through nifty inventions, Yen (Shaobo Qin ) as the Chinese acrobat revealing an inopportune secret, and Frank Catton (Bernie Mac) lending some soul to the plot. Also back is Andy Garcia as the casino owner still not quite over being stung by Danny. Adding a dash of crass vulgarity from a feminine perspective is Ellen Barkin as Bank’s assistant, sporting a severe bob, even more severe lips, and a push-up bra that’s giving 110%. At the other end of the spectrum is David Paymer, nebbishly cool in his own right as the hotel critic who holds a large hunk of Bank’s future in his checklist, and hence, suffers a season in hell as the innocent bystander in Danny’s plot. The twists come thick and fast with just enough time for one to sink in before another pops up along with an excruciatingly wonderful pun or two, such as heist-whiz Roman (Eddie Izzard) and his nemesis, computer whiz, Greco (Julian Sands).

They are, of course, doing a Very Bad Thing, and accomplishing it by appealing to everything that is weak and base in human nature, but they are doing it for a good cause, thus absolving them, and the audience, from a harsh judgment call. In fact, resorting to a relativism that works so very well in fantasy, they are meting out justice in a way that couldn’t happen here in the real world, making it double satisfying. And that, aided by smart writing is why it all breezes along on a cloud of witty banter and pheromones, flirting with a wink at the audience and an irrepressible sense of fun with just enough heart to make it all work. It plays on the considerable charisma of the leading men here, who all work very hard to make it all look effortless while still being just one of the guys. Albeit guys who look more or less like gods.

OCEAN’S 13 might seem trivial, but pulling off something this slick, this polished, and this cool while never breaking a sweat is one of cinema’s great joys.