After putting up the review of Ocean's 13 I thought putting up the Ocean's 12 review done earlier in Moutshut would be appropriate. So here's the review written on the 7th of Feb 2005.
Anybody who understands the dynamics of film making would agree that more difficult than making a successful movie is making a sequel. Steven Soderberg’s version of Rat pack eleven titled ’Oceans’ Eleven’ not only made millions at the box office but prompted the director to work on a sequel to it, aptly titled ’Oceans’ Twelve’.
Story
George Clooney as Danny Ocean and Julia Roberts as Tess are spending their ’second third anniversary’ in Europe. They get rattled by the presence of Benedict (Andy Garcia) demanding the return of the $160 million with interest they siphoned his casino in the previous movie. Benedict manages to globe trot and meet all members of the Oceans’ Eleven team to make sure the message is driven loud and clear. Brad Pitt as Rusty is recuperating from a failed romance with Isabel Lahiri played by the svelte Catherine Zeta Jones. Isabel works for the police force and is all determined to nail theives and the reason for this is something from her past.
Ocean, Rusty and the whole team decide to hit something in Europe to pay off their bucks to Benedict since hitting any place in the US would be walking into a death trap. The one question they have to find an answer to is to identify potential places that could help them make up this gigantic sum in a time span of one week. The added thrill to these situations is that Benedict had been alerted by Night Fox played by the dashing Vincent Cassel whose only motive here is to be proved as the best thief the world has ever seen. Linus Caldwell played by Matt Damon wants to play a much larger role this time around and it is hilarious to watch him on screen.
The story moves a bit slowly across Europe until the big deal is set despite some initial failures. This movie is full of surprises despite the presence of visual clues all over. Julia Roberts excels in comedy in a scene where she plays ’herself’ opposite Bruce Willis. Mind you, you need to listen to each word that is spoke to savor the humor and I am sure one would chuckle for the full length of the movie. After getting beaten to the first heist, Oceans team take up a challenge by Night Fox to steal a faberge egg. Do Ocean and his team make it through this challenge? Is Night Fox the better of the two? Is the premise set for yet another sequel, a la Oceans Thirteen?
Crew
Script by George Nolfi is the weakest part of this movie with things having kept at a slow pace in the beginning, but hey it’s never easy to write a decent continuation to a hugely successful heist movie. David Holmes’ music is there for one simple reason, functionality. You can hear Hip - Hop, Rock and the traditional hollywood piano - string combo in shades, but the movie is all about a different contemporary(not techno) sound aptly used in one flash back scene ance the end titles. This film was canned and directed by Steven Soderberg and he’s done a neat job, he never expected any critics to rave about this move I guess. But he will definitely smile his way to the box office since the audience would enjoy this movie.
Epilogue
This is a fun-movie, all the actors are wonderful on screen and exude a terrible sense of lethargy and chemistry that they don’t appear to be acting. The camera simply happens to be a voyeur in the lives of these people exposing their daily sides to us. It is a daunting task to shoot with big names in a movie that just about 2 hrs long. But all characters have enough screen time to warrant their names in the credits. George Clooney swims through the role with his calm demeanour and his on screen ramblings with . Brad Pitt does what he does best, charms his way into Jones’ heart. Andy Garcia has been wasted with having nothing to do expect walk into people’s lives.
Though cinema is a form of art, at times one simply needs to throw logic and stop looking for the tangible to enjoy a movie. Forget reading all this, simply rent this DVD/VCD or catch it in a theater. You won’t have to regret this experience if pure entertainment is what you are looking for despite that the fact that Oceans Eleven is a better movie. The end shows that there is indeed a possibility for Oceans Thirteen.
