Ray Pride

And I don’t even like soufflé.

Steven Soderbergh’s all-American guilt complex must have kicked in mad after the reception of "Ocean’s Twelve," a movie that seemed more a calculated insult to audiences worldwide than a worthy diversion.

Honestly, I felt so bruised by the second of the Soderbergh-Clooney-Pitt capers that I can’t summon up a single clear memory of a moment of it. (I do remember seeing it while suffused with Dr. Pepper.) At the time, I wrote, "Dandelion fluff, cat dander, motes of dust: all these minor irritants have more substance than the dashed-off insult that is ‘Ocean’s Twelve.’ While Steven Soderbergh’s my-friends-are-so-hip-they-float ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ makes an ideal companion on a transatlantic flight if you’re jacked up on antihistamines, the weightless, worthless spectacle of ‘Ocean’s Twelve,’ pointlessly criss-crossing a few grainy patches of Europe, is little more than a vision of a dozen or more millionaires jacking off in a loose circle." (Imagine how I felt. )

While there’s no real narrative tension in the new installment, it’s delightful in almost every frame and each particular. These characters are hoods, rogues, cads, and mean to some people who don’t really deserve it, but it’s all in the service of getting back at Willy Bank (Al Pacino), a macher who’s shoved their mentor, Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould, whose mensch-tastic comic timing remains sterling at the age of 68) out of his percentage of Vegas’ latest mega-casino. Pacino: "I don’t need the labor pains! I just WANT the BABY!" The name of Pacino’s character is typical of the lightly brassy in-jokery in this edition: The notorious bank robber Willie Sutton was the one who was asked, "Why do you rob banks?" His reply of supernal logic: "Because that’s where the money is." Thus: Willy Bank. (Pacino gets a few of his patent street-mongrel moments to howl and growl, and he’s man-tanned to the patina of a fine chocolate Lab.)

Really, "Ocean’s Thirteen" had me beaming from the opening credits, where the current Warner Bros. presentation credit, which is kind of dull, was monkeyed with in a way that’s both retro and now-retro, lightly jazzy, easy on the eyes. The animation in question draws on a similar marzipan palette to cameraman "Peter Andrews"’ (Soderbergh) visual style, filled with terrific oblong compositions, heavy on acute lines slashing across the frame in landscapes and hotel corridors and deeply hued blues and reds and yellows and greens.

The plot is absurd and complications pile upon complications, to the point of creating a backup plan that involves a man-made earthquake effected by the digger that dug the French side of the Chunnel. But it’s toothsome throughout. Herewith: Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and the gang go for their priciest, diciest heist after his double-cross of Reuben lands him in a hospital bed after a heart attack. Enter: Brad Pitt and Matt Damon, who throughout keep tongues thoroughly in dimpled cheeks and have a certain amount of fun with their public and personal profiles. Plus: Ellen Barkin as Bank’s second-in-charge; Casey Affleck and Scott Caan, who wind up fomenting a labor strike at a Mexican maquiladora dice factory, fueled by Zapata tequila (named after the revolutionary, a comic foreshadowing of Soderbergh’s upcoming pair of pictures about Che Guevara). David Paymer gets some mileage as a tortured "secret-shopper" who rates for the "Five Diamonds" status that Bank has earned for his earlier elephants, and Carl Reiner plays a hi-ho cheerio chap whom the staff are fooled into believing is the actual reviewer while Ocean’s men do many painful things to Paymer.

Another in-joke: the ding-a-ling that 85-year-old Reiner’s Saul Bloom confects, Kensington Chubb, boasts an exceptionally tall and strange curly white quiff atop his head that makes him a dead ringer to 84-year-old Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone, with whom Soderbergh has likely had run-ins with in the egregious stall-outs at Paramount Pictures of his repeated attempts to make a film of "Confederacy of Dunces." Soderbergh in-japed Redstone before: (An early working title of "Full Frontal" was "How To Survive a Hotel Room Fire," a seeming reference to a notorious incident in the life of the long-lived mogul. A second attempt at naming that mulligatawny was "The Art of Negotiating a Turn," which seems to apply to much of the man’s myriad moves in Soderbergh’s eclectic career.

"Ocean’s Thirteen" shows tremendous command, and I still await every Soderbergh movie with intense expectations. (And I still remember the times he’s told me I’m a jerk for liking "The Underneath," which is the movie that sent him into the push-me-pull-you pattern of his career.) Afterwards, I didn’t feel full from this larky malarkey, but I didn’t feel stuffed, I felt just right: Soderbergh + Co., including screenwriters Brian Koppelman and David Levien ("Rounders") have captured their own cavalier, rico-suave, effortless tone with these "analog players in a digital world" that matches at least our false memories of how cool it must have been to be around Sinatra and that bunch before they kicked your fucking teeth in. I’m smiling, I’m smiling!

"Ocean’s Thirteen" opens Friday at 3,150 locations.

(2007-06-05)

Also by Ray Pride

One Dish
Yellow Submarine, aka Odge's, a decades-old burger-and-hotdogs joint on the ground floor of an eccentric four-story brick building with a green-shingled mansard roof, and boldly colored, flat paintings of unattractive food on the outside walls. The crinkle-cut fries are very good, the oil doesn’t add flavor of other foods
(2007-06-01)

Only Disconnect
"Falling Man" is an imperfect book, necessary, but necessarily elusive. A couple chapters near the end seem to dawdle. This deceptively flat late passage has to be accommodated as he seems to lose his pace in slower movements, lesser themes, events damped in decrescendo. And with fearsome suddenness and rapacity, all heck breaks loose, returning to the opening chapters as a man who worked at the World Trade Center wanders from dust to light
(2007-05-29)

Tip of the Week
Five hours plus a few fast forwards on visual search that amounted to a couple more hours on the preview DVD reveal a bit of stodge and stiffness, but many fascinating tableaux that CGI can never duplicate, and no budget will ever merit again
(2007-05-29)

Mommy, I Googled Murder
The gift of Judd Apatow’s work: he understands the place of mortification; when we’re embarrassed for something we’ve done ourselves, we empathize more with a character who’s just been a dubious shit
(2007-05-29)

Summer Guide 2007: June Movies
(2007-05-22)

Summer Guide 2007: July Movies
(2007-05-22)

Summer Guide 2007: August Movies
(2007-05-22)

At First Sight
(2007-05-22)

Tip of the Week
(2007-05-22)

One Dish
(2007-05-18)

Film Review
(2007-05-18)

How goes the Jihad?
(2007-05-15)

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