George Clooney and Brad Pitt return to lead the ensemble cast from "Ocean's Eleven" in another excursion into crime.
--Randy
Ocean's Twelve (2004)
Directors: Steven Soderbergh
Producers: Jerry Weintraub
Writers: George Nolfi
Features: n/a
Characters:
Rusty Ryan...Brad Pitt
Danny Ocean...George Clooney
Isabel Lahiri...Catherine Zeta-Jones
Tess Ocean...Julia Roberts
Linus Caldwell...Matt Damon
Terry Benedict...Andy Garcia
Basher Tarr...Don Cheadle
Genre: Action/Adventure
Review:
I don't know. I kind of felt stupid after I saw the sneak of "Ocean's Twelve." At first I thought it might be because I never saw it's predecessor, "Ocean's Eleven." I couldn't follow the story. Well, I could sort of follow the story, but what I saw didn't make sense. Then again, maybe it made sense only it had to be either a brilliant masterpiece far beyond my comprehension or a piece of garbage. I choose to call it garbage. Garbage with an accent on the second syllable because most of the film took place in France."
This film did have style. There was every conceivable camera angle and zoom you could imagine. The director, Steven Soderbergh, was also a cameraman for this film. It looked like he got the vision that he wanted. Like a lot of visions, most are too personal to be readily appreciated and taken to heart by outsiders. I was an outsider. Judging by most of the audience's reaction to the advance screening we were privileged to be at, we were all outsiders. There were a few that rattled on about how they loved the verve and flair of the film, but no one admitted to truly understanding it.
How do you take stars like George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Catherine Zeta-Jones and waste them? That takes real talent.
The plot looked simple enough. The bad guy from "Ocean's Eleven" started appearing to all the people involved in the theft of his money and letting them know that they had two weeks to return it with interest or else. Now the team of eleven plus one more has to come up with a means to steal that amount plus interest. Entering the mix to complicate things is an investigator named Isabel Lahiri(Catherine Zeta-Jones), who has a personal vendetta with Rusty Ryan(Brad Pitt), and a mysterious master thief who wants to play games with a worthy foe. Danny Ocean(George Clooney) doesn't need any of this to complicate his already overly burdened life.
"Ocean's Twelve" has a "Mission Impossible" feel. The scenes are chopped up and very short. There are many characters doing certain jobs. Everyone has a specialty. When taken as a whole all these little jobs add up to one big job. That is as it should be.
However, in this film everything is too pat. Everything falls into place too neatly. There are no loose ends at the end of the picture. But, wait, this sounds like a good movie! Nothing left unraveled! That sounds good. How many movies have there been where certain things were just dropped because they didn't seem to fit and you were left to wonder about them at the end of the movie? "Ocean's Twelve" proves that some things are best left unanswered.
This film explains every detail to the point that things don't add up logically. There is a point in the film when three members of the team are brainstorming and trying to come up with a way to steal something. One person brings up a scheme that involves a cat. Another nixes the scheme as it would take three days to teach the cat the routine. This is one of the few times that the film made sense. It seems that in other parts of the film that cat would have been used with no thought for how long it's training would take. What I mean is that if a man with a limp and crossed-eyes is needed as a vital part of Danny Ocean's caper then somehow that man would be available. If a dog painted green was essential for another part then by coincidence that dog would suddenly appear on cue.
That is the problem with "Ocean's Twelve." Things happen, then simply unhappen magically. Nothing is too farfetched. It's like that cartoon where a painter paints himself into a corner, then paints a doorway on the wall and walks out. Sure it logically could never happen in the real world, but it worked in the cartoon world. "Ocean's Twelve" takes place in a cartoon world and someone forgot to notify the audience to suspend their belief.
Perhaps, as I surmised earlier, this film is a personal vision. A sort of joke on the viewer. I'm stretching things here, but no more than things were mangled in the movie. One clue, that this vision idea could have some merit to it is the presence of Bruce Willis in the movie playing himself. Do you remember Willis' 1991 "Hudson Hawk" movie that he had been allowed to personally take charge of because he was getting to be such a huge actor? It was so bad that it almost killed his career. In France the people loved it. In France they also glorify Jerry Lewis as one of the greatest comedy directors of all time too. So, in some warped way Soderbergh may have tried to duplicate a "Hudson Hawk." He created a tribute to overindulgence. Now he and the world must live with it. This movie is "Hudson Hawk II."
Whatever is the case, "Ocean's Twelve" is pure flash with no substance. The film is only worth one star out of five.
----Randy