OPM*
Presents – Ocean’s Thirteenth Year

Ocean's Thirteen, a film directed by Stephen Soderbergh, starring an ensemble cast led by George Clooney, Al Pacino, Matt Damon and Brad Pitt is set to release tomorrow. The third in the franchise that started with Ocean’s Eleven has spurred discussions on varied topics including Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, both self same people in India, their adopted kids etc, for months now. Apologetic mentions of the movie are included sometimes when these two very popular stars are photographed at locations like Pune, Cannes and their backyard. (Ex: Brad and Jolie spotted for the 13th time on the Pacific Ocean coastline, Brangelina to name 13th adoption Ocean)
Ocean’s Thirteen is the third in the Soderbergh series following the 2004 sequel Ocean's Twelve of the 2001 picture Ocean's Eleven, a remake of the 1960 Rat Pack film Ocean's Eleven (being a Rat Pack film all the stars consequently die of poisoning. Yes, rat poison) which was itself highly influenced by Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob le Flambeur (French, literally, ‘The Flambeur of Bob’ where several Englishmen spend hours, bobbing up and down, agonizing over what the hell a Flambeur is. No, they don’t find out)
After the hugely successful run of the first two movies, Soderbergh realized that though heist movies (Try: Jules Dassin’s Rififi, Kubrick’s The Killing, George Hill’s The Sting and Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon) would always have audiences, the arithmetic progression (with common difference 1) of characters and numerical suffixes in film name could not last for very long.
For example, in due course, when the 212th movie in the franchise is in the making it will be decidedly tough to fit in 212 different characters with as many sub plots into a 2-hour movie. Or for instance, the problems Ocean’s 666 will face, being condemned by religious groups as an act of Satan. If that isn’t convincing enough, think of some far future when half the world’s population will have to play lead roles in Oceans Three Billion Ninety Three Million Nine hundred Thousand Four hundred and Eighty Six? This arithmetic progression of characters, Soderbergh realized, was a very dangerous thing. Imagine the budgets he would have to organize! And the number of Vanity Vans!

Taking this into account, the filmmaker decided to put a new spin on the numeric in the nomenclature, using the numeric to denote something other than a character addition. Thus, Ocean’s Thirteen is about the teenage years of our heisting protagonists. There are rumours that the next film in the Ocean franchise will be Ocean’s Sixty Nine, the terribly interesting plot details for which are available on the Internet as an Oral clip.

Onwards to the movie releasing this week though – Ocean’s Thirteenth Year.

The movie begins with a pleasing close-up (particularly pleasing for the men folk in the audience to note that young George was a really ugly young boy, what with years of gushing from women about Clooney’s looks) of a 13-year-old Danny Ocean, played by a young George Clooney. All the other boys including Pitt, Damon and Andy Garcia join him, each competing for the years Most Annoying Child on Screen award. It turns out that all the kids are juvenile delinquents with a fetish for extra candy (sweets and toffees, not a girl named Candy. Candy, the girl, makes an appearance in Ocean’s Sixty Nine, as do some other interesting fetishes. My lips are sealed though! Anyway 13 isn’t that kind of movie. Kids can watch it, especially illegally)
Yeah, so the kids want extra candy and since this is a heist film, decide to steal it from the Candy Shop run by a 60-year-old failed white singer called 50 Cents for the Candy Bar (played by Al Pacino), who keeps lamenting his failed career as a hip-hop musician blaming his arthritis ridden hips for impeding his hopping.

What follows plays out like a sad rendition of ‘How much is that Doggie in the window?’ repeated over and over. Let me know if you liked the movie. Maybe I’ll send you some Candy.



* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release