Slowly Going Bald

Starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Catherine Zeta-Jones, et al.

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

2.5 stars (out of 4)

Plans for Ocean’s Twelve began three years ago, after the successful release of Ocean’s Eleven (2001), both under the direction of Steven Soderbergh. The first film was a love letter from Soderbergh to its stars, with George Clooney and Brad Pitt feasting on the image and idea of themselves as nicely dressed rogues and rakes, hookers with hearts of fool’s gold. Clooney and Co. outsmarted mean old Andy Garcia out of more than $150 million, and this time he’s returned to ask for it back. Even as justifications for sequels go, this one is pretty weak, and what’s worse, everyone on screen seems to know it. The first film popped with life and self-aware happiness, a joy at knowing what it was. The dialogue didn’t have to sparkle: we were paying Clooney and Julia Roberts to sparkle instead. But everything bright and enjoyable about Ocean’s Eleven has been dulled and beaten down for Ocean’s Twelve. Everyone involved is just going through the motions, biding their time on something easy; beautiful strangers photographed sadly, if that’s your thing.

I could go into more detail about the plot, this time much more convoluted and far less rewarding than last time, but I won’t. Danny Ocean and his pals have to come up with enough cash to pay back Terry Benedict (Garcia), so they do a number of jobs around Europe before winning in the end. This time Catherine Zeta-Jones is thrown in as Rusty’s (Brad Pitt) love interest. Will she and Rusty reconcile? Will Danny and friends escape the clutches of the cold-hearted Benedict? Will it even matter? All will be well.

Gene Siskel, when appraising a film, often liked to ask, "Is this movie more or less interesting than a documentary of the same actors having lunch?" He would have been dumbfounded by Ocean’s Twelve, which sidesteps the issue entirely by collapsing the distinction. The idea behind the question, although still true, becomes irrelevant.

Ocean’s Twelve does its predecessor one better by wandering from self-awareness into the borderlands of metafilm. I know some might disagree with the breadth of my interpretation, and I know there are films (e.g., The Player [1993]) that do the category more justice. The first film was littered with pop-culture references and in-jokes meant to hook the audience and make us feel smart for being in on the in-joke; the poker scene in which Topher Grace and Shane West played caricatures (I hope) of their publicly perceived selves was only funny because we recognized these people and knew their real names. These people get paid to be watched and act like no one’s watching, but when they pretend to be themselves it’s as if some mystical barrier has been broken, and we, the audience, are allowed inside someplace new. At least, that’s what we’re encouraged to tell ourselves. Even the closing credits for Ocean’s Eleven depended more on the audience's knowledge of Hollywood than any developed sense of humor: the last credit, "And introducing Julia Roberts as Tess," is a self-loving toss-off because (1) who doesn’t know Julia Roberts by now?, (2) Soderbergh, who directed both Oceans, also directed Roberts in Erin Brockovich, for which they each won Oscars (the justice of this to be discussed another day), (3) we’re supposed to laugh because we know (1) and (2), and (4) we’re supposed to feel smart at laughing in (3), and so on ad inf.

But whereas Ocean’s Eleven threw a wink to the audience, Ocean’s Twelve looks us straight in the eye. If Eleven made us feel like we’re in on the joke (and thrilled about feeling in, and smart about being thrilled, and here we go again down the spiral, etc.), then Twelve tells us it knows it's joking; we are only in on what we’re allowed by the film to know. When the gang reunites at the beginning of the film, some argue about why they’re referred to as "Ocean’s Eleven," saying they didn’t know Ocean was so proprietary. They’re as good as telling us they know all about the first film and would like to know what they’re doing in a sequel. In a shift from pandering to the audience to almost mocking them, Soderbergh and crew have crafted a film that serves no purpose other than to remind the audience every moment that they’re watching a film. In one fascinating sequence, the boys decide to use Tess as a distraction to get close to a Faberge egg they’ve been eyeing (don’t ask). They note that Tess looks a lot like Julia Roberts, and so one party dress and pillow up her skirt later (she was pregnant, remember?), Tess is parading around saying she’s Julia Roberts, and the metaphysical water only gets murkier when she/we run into Bruce Willis (played by Bruce Willis, thankfully) in a hotel. Rather than let the cameo go, Bruce goes up to see Tess/Julia, who freaks out when she sees him because he is, after all, a movie star, and she’s just an ordinary thief’s wife. Bruce asks here about Danny, a perfectly valid question because it means Danny Ocean to Tess and Daniel Moder to Julia. They then call Julia’s house for some flimsy reason, and when the "real" (?) Julia answers the phone we are provided the spectacle of Julia Roberts pretending to be someone else pretending to be Julia Roberts talking on the phone to Julia Roberts. The entire sequence is not only unnecessary but disruptive: we’re missing out on key, or at least relevant, action while Julia pretends to be herself via someone fictional.

Despite this, Ocean’s Twelve manages to stumble across a few well-placed gags and moments, and it’s only because of the blinding wattage of the cast that the whole thing doesn’t go down in flames by the second reel. The film ends with everyone playing poker, drinking, listening to music, etc., and we get the feeling that this is what they’d rather be doing anyway. The scene doesn’t even feel like part of a cohesive narrative but simply an excuse to put everyone in the same room again and watch them. They acknowledge and condone our voyeurism, telling us before we can argue that everything will be okay. At this point we’re no longer sure if we’re watching characters interact or actors, and that glint in Clooney’s eye says it all: "Exactly."

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