Ocean's Thirteen (2007)

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General		Extras
Category	Caper	Featurette-Vegas - An Opulent Illusion Interviews-Crew-Jerry Weintraub Walk and Talk Deleted Scenes
Rating
Year Of Production	2007
Running Time	117:07
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (57:10)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Steven Soderbergh
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	George Clooney Brad Pitt Matt Damon Elliott Gould Bernie Mac Al Pacino Don Cheadle Casey Affleck Eddie Jemison Scott Caan Shaobo Qin Carl Reiner Eddie Izzard
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$29.95	Music	David Holmes

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.40:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.40:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    With suitable relish, Al Pacino makes a villainous and welcome appearance in this, the third film in the Ocean's canon. In Ocean's Thirteen, Pacino is the aptly named Willie Bank, a new-style Las Vegas casino boss who cares little for other people, even less for tradition, and spares no expense in building the biggest and most opulent casino and hotel in the city. Ever the tycoon, he will also stop at nothing and let nobody get in his way until he owns the entire town.

    But Bank is about to bite off just a bit more than he can handle when he swindles Reuben Tishkoff (Elliot Gould). Flush with cash from the previous heists in Ocean's Eleven and Ocean's Twelve, Rueben has been dealing with Bank in his major new venture. But when Bank pulls the rug from under Rueben, leaving the casino purist in a comatose state, bedridden and unable to speak - Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and friends come to the rescue. Ocean and his pals from the original film including Rusty (Brad Pitt) and Linus (Matt Damon) all return to exact some revenge on the unscrupulous Bank. And what a revenge it is likely to be. With a bag of money at their disposal, Ocean's team has the resources and the nous to pull off the mother of all swindles. The plan is simple - Opening night for Bank's new casino is just a few weeks away. Ocean's gang plan to rig it, so that every punter who walks in the door in those opening hours will walk out a winner. By rigging every game in favour of the punter, the boys plan to wreak the ultimate revenge on one of the richest men in Las Vegas - by effectively ruining him in just a few hours.

    With the caper film genre you always know the ending pretty much from the start. But what's important in this often fun style of film is the journey. It has to be elaborate, fun, and contain a few surprises or two. Most of these criteria are filled here with a complex (though not too complex to follow) plan to rig each of the games in the casino. This creates a series of side plots as Ocean's boys set about rigging dice at a factory in Mexico and impersonating the top rating Michelin-style restaurant/hotel quality inspector who has been sent to examine every detail of Bank's new hotel before proclaiming it a winner of the prestigious Five Diamond award.

This is a real fun film, with plenty of gags, elaborate tricks and stunts, and some good old-fashioned story telling and comes highly recommended. If you loved Ocean's Eleven and were slightly disappointed with Ocean's Twelve, this offering should convince you that director Steven Soderbergh has not lost his magic touch.

Video

    The video is offered in exactly the same aspect ratio as it was shown theatrically, this being 2.40:1. It is also 16x9 enhanced.

    I was a little disappointed with the sharpness and detail level on offer here. The whole thing has just the slightest hint of softness and while shadow detail is adequately handled, grain is pretty much present from the opening titles to the closing credits. From the overall look of the film this grainy approach seems to be artistically intentional. There is no low level noise.

    The colours are extremely well-rendered, matching the original film for vibrancy and saturation.

    Thankfully there is no annoying shimmer or Aliasing.html" target="Aliasing">aliasing on any surface and film artefacts are absent.

    English subtitles are available, and after sampling these extensively I found them mostly accurate.

    This is a dual layered disc which is formatted RSDL. The layer change occurs at 57:10.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are three audio soundtracks on this disc - all in English. First choice is the lovely English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, while for those requiring assistance there is an at-times scant descriptive soundtrack. There is also a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack rounding out the selection. Listening to the English Dolby Digital 5.1 track I was struck by how vibrant and fully-textured this soundtrack is. There are stacks of directional effects and fill-in surround effects used throughout. Much of the busy casinos springs to life with the surrounds in constant use. A great soundtrack all up and one that will make full use of all your speakers.

    There are no dialogue problems. It is always clear and prominent. There are no audio sync issues.
   
    Like he was for the earlier films David Holmes is again responsible for the score and it is again one of the highlights. It is snappy and breezy and captures the cheeky heist genre to perfection.

    There is a good amount of surround use and it provides a fairly decent enveloping experience when engaged.

    The subwoofer crops up on occasion, supporting a bit of the crash and bang, but it is mostly the low end of the score that benefits the most.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Featurette - Vegas: An Opulent Illusion

    This is a really interesting look at the amazing city that is Las Vegas. Presented in an almost documentary style and narrated by actor DB Sweeney, there are stacks of photos and vision from the days when the town was just a desert outpost, through the humble beginnings of the first casinos to the arrival of the over-the-top mega themed-resorts. Runs for a decent 22:47 and contains very little self-promotional fluff. Highly recommended to gain an appreciation of just what an extravagant place Las Vegas is and how it is a city that seems to radically reinvent itself every couple of decades.

Interviews-Crew

    Producer Jerry Weintraub takes us on a whirlwind tour of the set of The Bank casino. A complete waste of time that runs for just 2:25.

Deleted Scenes

    A few deleted scenes that run for a total of 4:35. Nothing to really set the world on fire here.

    From all reports the Region 1 disc is identical to this Region 4 offering.

    Thankfully Ocean's Thirteen leaves the over-blown self-indulgence of Ocean's Twelve behind with a return to the familiar surroundings of Las Vegas. This is the sequel we should have had to the sassy, fun and funky Ocean's Eleven. This is a slick and highly enjoyable film that comes recommended for a great night's viewing.

    The video transfer is free from major blemish, but is quite grainy - obviously an artistic choice.

    The audio track is excellent and will have you grooving in your seat.

    The extras are pretty light, though the major featurette on Las Vegas is quite informative.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall