OCEAN'S THIRTEEN
"There are people starving in the world," my mother would often say after encountering something trivial that a lot of resources have gone into.
The implication was that something more worthwhile could have been done with the resources of time and money.
That is certainly true of, and in many ways, the point of the latest Soderberg/Clooney excursion into the trivial, an ongoing hommage to the triviality of the Rat Pack's incessently narcissistic original OCEAN'S ll and ROBIN AND THE SEVEN HOODS (which at least had the benefit of Edward G. Robinson).
Plot, theme and, in any reasonable sense, character, are utterly irrelevant. But this time, in this third installment amidst a summer of thirds (or are they turds), that there is an awareness that people are starving in the world is almost the point. At one point Clooney and Pitt cry at an episode of Oprah, and, at the end, the proceeds frm the heist backed by Andy Garcia, go to a charaty, with Garcia having to state n television his commitment to the cause. Noone wuld believe it in the context of this fluff. There's even a nod to Clooney's gaining weight for the politically committed SYRIANA,(also with Soderberg) and to Pitt's adapting third world children.
What were left with is a formula movie (like the DIE HARD franchise_ with which the audience is familiar - the characters, the Vegas locale, etc. There is n real attempt to involve the audience in the plot. We know they'll successd, so there is no suspense. Even the mechanations of the heist are glossed over and really hard to follow once the heist gets going. There is no attempt to get us to care about any of this. Clooney and Pitt don't even get their hair mussed.
All this wud be ok if it were at least funny. Sometimes, it's ok just to laugh, as Preston Sturges so exquisetely pointed out in SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS, and that message was impicit in the Coen brothera'OH BROTHER WHERE ARE THOW, which in some way was inspired by SULIVAN'S TRAVELS. But both those films were genuime;y funny amnd inspired. Here, the humor cmes frm famiiarity with the characters, the recogniztion of the in-jokes, including multipe references to THE GODFATHER.
The tone is casual. Some good things include the banter between Clooney and Pitt, where one cmpletes the sentences of the other. The overlapping dialogue almost invokes CITIZEN KANE. And Al Pacino's Donald Trump imitation is good, but there is no comic, let alone dramatic, impact in his ultimate comeuppance. It is a lazy movie. In short, in a summer of expensive but safe sequels, OCEAN'S THIRTEEN can entertain, but, maybe, as the film fades quickly as we go get a drink or an ice cream afterwards, the thought might cross, "There are people that are starving in the world"
The implication was that something more worthwhile could have been done with the resources of time and money.
That is certainly true of, and in many ways, the point of the latest Soderberg/Clooney excursion into the trivial, an ongoing hommage to the triviality of the Rat Pack's incessently narcissistic original OCEAN'S ll and ROBIN AND THE SEVEN HOODS (which at least had the benefit of Edward G. Robinson).
Plot, theme and, in any reasonable sense, character, are utterly irrelevant. But this time, in this third installment amidst a summer of thirds (or are they turds), that there is an awareness that people are starving in the world is almost the point. At one point Clooney and Pitt cry at an episode of Oprah, and, at the end, the proceeds frm the heist backed by Andy Garcia, go to a charaty, with Garcia having to state n television his commitment to the cause. Noone wuld believe it in the context of this fluff. There's even a nod to Clooney's gaining weight for the politically committed SYRIANA,(also with Soderberg) and to Pitt's adapting third world children.
What were left with is a formula movie (like the DIE HARD franchise_ with which the audience is familiar - the characters, the Vegas locale, etc. There is n real attempt to involve the audience in the plot. We know they'll successd, so there is no suspense. Even the mechanations of the heist are glossed over and really hard to follow once the heist gets going. There is no attempt to get us to care about any of this. Clooney and Pitt don't even get their hair mussed.
All this wud be ok if it were at least funny. Sometimes, it's ok just to laugh, as Preston Sturges so exquisetely pointed out in SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS, and that message was impicit in the Coen brothera'OH BROTHER WHERE ARE THOW, which in some way was inspired by SULIVAN'S TRAVELS. But both those films were genuime;y funny amnd inspired. Here, the humor cmes frm famiiarity with the characters, the recogniztion of the in-jokes, including multipe references to THE GODFATHER.
The tone is casual. Some good things include the banter between Clooney and Pitt, where one cmpletes the sentences of the other. The overlapping dialogue almost invokes CITIZEN KANE. And Al Pacino's Donald Trump imitation is good, but there is no comic, let alone dramatic, impact in his ultimate comeuppance. It is a lazy movie. In short, in a summer of expensive but safe sequels, OCEAN'S THIRTEEN can entertain, but, maybe, as the film fades quickly as we go get a drink or an ice cream afterwards, the thought might cross, "There are people that are starving in the world"
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home