Ocean's Trilogy Retrospective

There is a lot of hype surrounding one of this weekend’s new releases, Logan Lucky. And one of the reasons why is because of who it’s directed by; none other than director Steven Soderbergh. This film serves as a much-heralded return to the big-screen for the director, who ‘retired’ from directing feature films in 2013. Prior to that, Soderbergh had made quite a name for himself in the film industry through his work on various projects. These have ranged from indie flicks like 1989’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape to A-list releases like his pair of efforts from 2000, Erin Brockovich and Traffic, the latter of which won him the Oscar for Best Director at that year’s ceremony. However, just like with Kathryn Bigelow’s Detroit earlier this month, today I won’t be doing a full directorial retrospective on Soderbergh’s work because, once again, I don’t have enough time to watch all his films to get this out in time for Logan Lucky. Instead, today we’ll be looking at one of his most famous directorial efforts, the Ocean’s trilogy. The first of these three films, 2001’s Ocean’s Eleven, was a remake of a 1960 film of the same name. The original film featured an all-star ensemble cast highlighted by several members of the era’s iconic ‘group’ of entertainers known as the ‘Rat Pack’, including Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., etc. The remake features an equally stacked ensemble cast that includes the likes of George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, and Julia Roberts… and that’s just to name a few. And while the critical reception of this series has varied with each release, all three films have been solid commercial hits with a combined total of over $1.1 billion earned at the box-office. There’s even a spin-off in the works directed by Gary Ross, Ocean’s Eight, which will be headlined by an all-female cast. Today, though, it’s time to hit the casinos and tag along with the charismatic Danny Ocean and his crew as we look back at Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s trilogy.

OCEAN’S ELEVEN (2001)

In Ocean’s Eleven, George Clooney stars as Danny Ocean, a charming thief who’s just been released from prison. As soon as he gets out, he enlists 10 of his old associates for a heist on three of Vegas’ biggest casinos; the Bellagio, the Mirage, and the MGM Grand. All three are owned by Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), who just so happens to be dating Danny’s ex-wife Tess (Julia Roberts), which proves to be one of the main reasons why Danny is undertaking this operation. And really, that’s all that this film has in terms of its plot; at the end of the day, it’s just a simple heist story with minimal character development. Aside from Danny, Tess, his best friend Rusty (Brad Pitt), and ‘rookie’ Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon), everyone else is mostly just ‘there’, meaning that there’s not much emotional weight to these proceedings. With that said, though, when the film delivers on exactly what the audience came for (i.e. the heist), that’s where it really shines. Soderbergh does succeed at crafting a slick, stylish, and all-around fun heist thriller that benefits from some excellent cinematography by Peter Andrews… who is really Soderbergh. Yeah, Soderbergh’s one of those directors known for doing the cinematography and editing on their own films under a pseudonym. Anyway, as for the film’s cast, while it’s often been said that they’re mostly just mugging for the camera in these films which, to be fair, is kind of true, they’re still a lot of fun to watch and work off each other incredibly well. Thus, Ocean’s Eleven ultimately succeeds at being exactly what it is; an admittedly simple but overall fun thriller, nothing more, nothing less.

Rating: 4/5

OCEAN’S TWELVE (2004)

Steven Soderbergh has gone on record stating that Ocean’s Twelve is his personal favorite of the three Ocean’s films that he’s directed. However, he’s sort of in the minority on that one, as Ocean’s Twelve received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics and is generally considered to be the weakest of the trilogy. And overall… unfortunately, Mr. Soderbergh, I find that I agree with the critics on this one. Ocean’s Twelve is an oddly assembled sequel, as it doesn’t do much of what it’s meant to be about, heists. In fact, most of the main protagonists end up in jail at one point or another, meaning that they’re often separated from each other for most of the runtime which, therefore, goes against the series’ team dynamic. And despite starting out with what appears to be another simple heist plot, this film then goes all over the place in terms of its narrative, including the infamous scene where Danny’s wife Tess pretends to be Julia Roberts for a heist (just as a reminder, Tess is played by Julia Roberts). This scene, complete with a random Bruce Willis cameo, soon descends into complete absurdity, to the point where I genuinely got disoriented at one point as to just what the heck was going on in it. Now, in Soderbergh’s defense, I can at least understand as to why this is his favorite entry in the trilogy. Stylistically speaking, this entry in the series feels the most Soderbergh-esque, with experimental camera work (i.e. a TON of panning shots) and a meta vibe to the proceedings. In fact, it could be argued that, with this film, Soderbergh was going against the norms of a traditional Hollywood sequel. Still, I think that he was being a bit too experimental with this one, resulting in a frustrating film that doesn’t really have a lot of what made the first film so entertaining. Whereas that film left me entertained, this film just left me feeling empty.

Rating: 1.5/5

OCEAN’S THIRTEEN (2007)

After experimenting with Ocean’s Twelve to mixed results, Soderbergh returned to basics with the third and final installment of the trilogy, Ocean’s Thirteen… which makes it more of a superior sequel than its immediate predecessor. Now, sure, it could be argued that, by doing so, this makes the film more of a ‘safe’ sequel. However, this also means that, unlike the previous film, this film’s focus is exactly where it needs to be, and that is on Danny Ocean and co. and their heist. In fact, this film benefits from much stronger pacing compared to both the previous two films. Whereas those films started off slow to set things up, this film gets right into the action. Plus, while there wasn’t really anything to get emotionally attached to in either of the first two films’ plots, this one does, in fact, have more to it in terms of its emotional stakes. The main plot revolves around Danny and the gang attempting a heist on a new Vegas casino owned by hotel owner Willy Bank, a highly entertaining villain played by Al Pacino. This also happens to be more of a personal job for the group, as Bank had screwed over their ally Reuben (Elliott Gould) when building it. The film also does a nice job of showcasing how things have changed in the gaming industry since the original film. This ends up making things harder for the group during the heist, like when they must deal with the casino’s advanced computer system which can track the legitimacy of a player’s winnings. Granted, I’m not saying that all this makes the plot and character development that much better compared to what we saw before. But, thanks to what is easily Soderbergh’s best directing job on this entire trilogy, Ocean’s Thirteen ends up being the rare case in which a threequel is ultimately the best installment of its trilogy. Yeah, it’s mainly just popcorn entertainment, but when it’s this well-made, who am I to judge?

Rating: 4.5/5