OCEAN'S TWELVE

OCEAN'S TWELVE
by Reymundo Salao
Just Another Film Junkie
The Guardian, January 20, 2005

I was rather glad that Robinson's Movieworld managed to extend the theatre run of Ocean's Twelve. The film has a multiple stellar cast; George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Catherine Zeta Jones, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Bernie Mac, among others, and was directed by Steven Soderbergh (who directed Ocean's Eleven, Traffic, and Solaris). The film is the sequel of Ocean's Eleven, a remake about an organized group of talented, err… thieves who have managed to accomplish the impossible, by stealing millions of dollars from three Las Vegas casinos at the same evening. This sequel follows what happened a few years after the events of Ocean's Eleven. As Benedict, the gangster-type owner of the three Casinos, has found out that it was Daniel Ocean and his group (dubbed the Ocean's Eleven), who were the ones who were guilty of stealing from him. He and his goons began visiting the Ocean's Eleven and giving them a deadline upon which they must pay him back what they stole from him, or else of course, he would have their heads.

So, Danny Ocean and his Ocean's Eleven must now do what they can to gather enough cash to pay their debt. How else would they generate enough cash, but to go on stealing again. And so, the Ocean's Eleven are back at their drawing boards to accomplish great, almost-impossible heists. But they have more than one problem to slow them down. A brilliant Catcher-of-Thieves Interpol agent, as portrayed by Catherine Zeta Jones, and competition in the guise of another master thief who wishes to challenge the skills of Ocean's Eleven.

Ocean's Twelve is a very entertaining movie with unexpected zany humor, the kind that has sent me choking in laughter when I watched it. It serves as a really good sequel to Ocean's Eleven. (spoiler alert: the following may have hints that may spoil the film to those who haven't watched the movie) We may all have enjoyed movies of heroic thieves, like "Entrapment", "The Thomas Crown Affair" and "After the Sunset", but those movies have not delved into the emotion of how it is for a heroically impossible feat of theft fall to failure and be caught by the police. Ocean's Twelve lets you in to the emotions of this, something which I may consider a breakthrough for movies of this genre.

If you have watched this movie, I bet you would agree that this is one film worth watching again and again. The tandem of the cast brings such a pleasant chemistry that it surely entertains us, and the humor that it brings is something to discuss and laugh about with your friends afterwards.