After pulling off the heist of their lives, Danny Ocean and his pals unexpectedly find themselves back in harness in this sequel to 2001's blockbuster hit Ocean's Eleven. After robbing a cool $160 million from the Bellaggio Hotel Casino and winning back his former wife, Tess (Julia Roberts), from Bellagio owner Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), Danny Ocean (George Clooney) is living quietly on the lam in Connecticut when he's unexpectedly approached by Benedict. It seems Benedict has tracked down Danny and the ten men who helped him pull off the seemingly impossible robbery, and Benedict offers them a proposal -- if they can repay the $160 million in two weeks, he won't have them killed. As it turns out, both Danny and his best friend, Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt), haven't been doing so well in terms of money management and could use some cash, so they set out to plan a robbery to recover the loot, with the same crew helping out -- Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon), Frank Catton (Bernie Mac), Basher Tarr (Don Cheadle), Saul Bloom (Carl Reiner), Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould), Livingston Dell (Eddie Jemison), Yen (Shaobo Qin), Virgil Malloy (Casey Affleck), and his brother Turk (Scott Caan). Danny and Rusty discover that an incredibly rare Fabergé egg is being displayed at a museum in Rome which would fetch the price they need, but they soon discover a notorious cat burglar, François Toulour (Vincent Cassel), is also after the egg, and it turns into a race to see who can claim it first. Adding to the intrigue is Isabel Lahiri (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a woman Rusty used to be involved with who is now a top agent with Interpol and is after both Toulour and Ocean's crew. Shot on location in both the United States and Europe, Ocean's Twelve was, like its precursor, directed by the stylish Steven Soderbergh, who also photographed the picture under his nom de lens, Peter Andrews. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Review
At the end of The Player, Robert Altman got Bruce Willis and Julia Roberts to spoof their status as the biggest box-office draws of the time. Fifteen years later, Steven Soderbergh uses the same two stars in order to skewer celebrity culture as a whole. The post-modern finale dovetails nicely with the frisky formalist games that director Steven Soderbergh likes to play, but Ocean's Twelve is easily his least substantial film to date. That does not mean it is not entertaining. The large cast obviously had a blast working together and making the film. While that often leads to finished films that alienate audiences who are not allowed to be in on all the fun that must have been happening when the cameras stopped, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and everyone else all care more about their careers than their status as celebrities. They surely enjoy the perks of fame; there is no need for this film to exist other than for this collection of actors to revel in hanging out with celebrity friends. However, they fully comprehend how fluid their fame is, and therefore they do appreciate the audience. The viewer is put in the position of being in on the joke rather than having the joke played on them. With lesser talent, Ocean's Twelve might have come off as a crass attempt to cash in, but the first-rate crew and cast turn the film into a good-humored exercise in style over substance. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi
Casey Affleck - Virgil Malloy; Scott Caan - Turk Malloy; Vincent Cassel - François Toulour; Edward Jemison - Livingston Dell; Shaobo Qin - Yen; Carl Reiner - Saul Bloom; Elliott Gould - Reuben Tishkoff; Robbie Coltrane - Matsui; Eddie Izzard - Roman Nagel; Cherry Jones - "Molly Star"/Mrs. Caldwell; Jeroen Krabbé - Van der Woude; Jared Harris - Basher's Engineer; Candice Azzara - Saul's Lady; Michael de Lano - Casino Manager; Albert Finney - Gaspar La Marque; Nelson Peltz - Partygoer; Mattia Sbragia - Commissario Giordano; Giselda Volodi - Toulour's Butler; Jerry Weintraub - American Businessman; Johan Widerberg - Johan; Al Faris - Frank's Jail Mate; Luciano Miele - Hotel Manager; Adriano Giannini - Museum Director; Giulio Magnolia - Photographer; Jeroen Willems - Paul; Mathieu Simonet - Backpack Kid; Martina Stella - Nagel's Assistant; Larry Sontag - Plainclothes Goon #2; Ed Kross - Bank Officer; Don Tiffany - House Painter; James M. Schneider - Club Heckler; Anne-Marguerite Jacques - Shop Owner; Dina Connolly - Virgil's Fiancée; Mini Anden - Supermodel; Jennifer Liu - Mani-pedi Woman #1; Leah Zhang - Mani-Pedi Woman #2; Craig Susser - Men's Club Waiter; Nerissa Tedesco - Palm Reader; Nichelle Hines - Assistant Manager; Michael VanDerHeijden - Funeral Priest; Chris Tates - Paul's Partner; David Lindsay - Arsenal Bus Driver; Youma Diakite - Toulour Woman #1; Andrea Buhl - Toulour Woman #2; Sylvia Kwon - Toulour Woman #3; Francesca Lancini - Toulour Woman #4; Raquel Faria - Toulour Woman #5; Elena Potapova - Toulour Woman #6; Jessie Bell - Toulour Woman #7; Anne-Solenne Hatte - Toulour Woman #8; Denny Mendez - Toulour Woman #9; Carlo Antonazzo - Security Advisor; Mingming Gao - Chinese Mother; Amelie Kahn-Ackermann - Chinese Daughter; Antonio DeMatteo - Hotel Employee; Ana Caterina Morariu - Bruce Willis' Companion; Dennis DiAngelo - Photographer's Assistant; Karl A. Brown - Train Security #1; Marc Bodnar - Train Security #2; Scott L. Schwartz - Bruiser; David Sontag - Plainclothes Goon #1; Eddie Jemison
Credit
Jean-Michel Hugon - Art Director, Tony Fanning - Art Director, Eugenio Ulissi - Art Director, Debra Zane - Casting, Greg Jacobs - Co-producer, Frederic W. Brost - Co-producer, Milena Canonero - Costume Designer, Greg Jacobs - First Assistant Director, Steven Soderbergh - Director, Stephen Mirrione - Editor, John Hardy - Executive Producer, Susan Ekins - Executive Producer, Bruce Berman - Executive Producer, David Holmes - Composer (Music Score), David Homes - Composer (Music Score), Philip Messina - Production Designer, Peter Andrews - Cinematographer, Jerry Weintraub - Producer, Lauren Polizzi - Set Designer, Billy Hunter - Set Designer, Paul Ledford - Sound/Sound Designer, John Robotham - Stunts Coordinator, George Nolfi - Screenwriter, Al Laverde - Key Grip, Larry Blake - Re-Recording Mixer, Larry Blake - Supervising Sound Editor, Kristen Toscano Messina - Set Decorator, Cinzia Sleiter - Set Decorator, Jaap Hoek - Set Decorator
Terry Benedict (Andy García) rounds up the original eleven members of Danny Ocean's (George Clooney) gang, demanding they return the $160 million they stole from his casinos with $38 million in interest. Short by half, the group schemes to stage another heist in Europe to avoid problems with United States authorities. They are tipped off by an informant named Matsui (Robbie Coltrane) about the location of the first stock certificate ever, issued in 1602, which was for the Dutch East India Company, owned by an agoraphobe (Jeroen Krabbé) and kept in his private home in Amsterdam. While the certificate would not meet their debt, it would help extend their deadline and secure another job by Matsui that will be enough to pay the debt. After a complex series of schemes, including raising the house a few inches to achieve a necessary line-of-sight, they find the document has already been stolen by "The Night Fox", another master thief. After the failed attempt, Europol Detective Isabel Lahiri (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is called to investigate the theft and realizes Danny's gang attempted the heist based on her previous relationship with Rusty (Brad Pitt) as well as the Night Fox's involvement. She surprises the group at their lodgings, and warns them they cannot beat the Night Fox or his mentor LeMarque (Albert Finney) , both of whom she has been trailing for years.
Danny and his gang discover the Night Fox is Baron François Toulour (Vincent Cassel), a wealthy businessman who has a mansion on Lake Como. Toulour invites Danny to his mansion and reveals that he had hired Matsui to inform the gang about the certificate in order to arrange the meeting with Danny. Toulour is upset that LeMarque did not describe him as the best thief in the world, and challenges Danny to steal the Coronation Egg. If Danny and his gang wins, Toulour will pay off the debt to Benedict.
Danny and his gang begin to plan an elaborate heist to swap the Egg for a holographic recreation, but the engineer hired by the group accidentally tips off Lahiri to their presence, and she captures most of The Twelve on their first attempt. Linus (Matt Damon) comes up with a second plan to have Danny's wife Tess (Julia Roberts) pose as a pregnant Julia Roberts in order to get close to The Egg and swap it. They are foiled by Lahiri, and the rest of the group are captured. While Lahiri prepares her case against Danny's team, they are extradited by the FBI, aided by Lahiri having forged documents to allow her own involvement in the bust; the lead agent is in fact Linus's mother (Cherry Jones).
Some time later, Danny and Tess return to Toulour's estate where he reveals his glee at their failure. Toulour claims to have stolen the Egg at night using his agility and Capoeira skills to evade the heavy security. Toulour's celebration is short-lived when Danny reveals that his group stole the Egg while it was in transit to the museum and Toulour realises they were tipped off by LeMarc. A flashback reveals that Danny and Rusty had met with LeMarc much earlier where he revealed his long con whose success would humiliate Toulour, bring him the Egg that he had stolen years ago and relinquished due to his wife's wishes, and eventually reunite him with his daughter. Toulour is forced to admit Danny won the bet and gives him the money for the debt. They pay back Benedict and promise not to perform any more heists in his casinos but Toulour keeps the group under watch (a foreshadowing of the events of Ocean's Thirteen). With Rusty's help, Lahiri is taken to a safe house lent to him by LeMarque, who reveals himself to be her father. The final scenes of the film, in which the primary characters enjoy a private poker session, imply that she and Rusty have re-kindled their relationship.
In spite of extremely high box office expectations and a promising opening weekend, Ocean's Twelve did not fare as well as Ocean's Eleven, although by film industry standards it was still a financial success. By comparison with its predecessor, Ocean's Twelve grossed about $125 million in the United States and $351 million after its worldwide theatrical run, while Ocean's Eleven made about $184 million domestically and grossed $444 million worldwide in its entire box office run.
The movie received mixed reviews overall, scoring a 57% on Rotten Tomatoes. The film was criticized for its slow start, its complex plot and a final twist that negated much of the preceding action. The Washington Post's Stephen Hunter said that "it all ends on one of those infuriatingly sloppy notes where, having dramatized narrative events WXYZ for us, which we have taken on good faith, it suddenly and arbitrarily delivers narrative events STUV, which completely invalidate events WXYZ."[1] Many viewers and critics also felt the movie was a thinly veiled excuse for several A-list actors (including Clooney, Pitt and Damon) to work on a project together. Newsweek said that "while it looks like the cast is having a blast and a half, the studied hipness can get so pleased with itself it borders on the smug."[2] Claudia Puig with USA Today remarked, "At the rate things are going, all of Hollywood will put in about a day's work on Ocean's Seventeen."[3] More mercifully, Roger Ebert concluded his review this way, "The movie is all about behavior, dialogue, star power and wiseass in-jokes. I really sort of liked it."[4]Ocean's Twelve was rated by Entertainment Weekly as one of "The 25 Worst Sequels Ever Made".[5]
Despite its poor critical response, the film won a BMI Film Music Award, received by composer David Holmes. The film was nominated for several[which?] other festival awards.
The original soundtrack to Ocean's Twelve was released by Warner Bros. Records on December 7, 2004. David Holmes returned to compose the music for the film and won a BMI award. His songs "Amsterdam" and "I Love Art...Really!" were released as singles and do not appear on the commercial soundtrack. The soundtrack is also absent of the music used during the Nightfox "laser-dance" sequence in the film. The clip is from a track called "Thé à la Menthe" performed by La Caution, according to the film's end credits. The track titled "The Real Story" is different on the commercial soundtrack than it is in the film, which uses "Rito a Los Angeles" by Giuseppe De Luca, featuring part of the main riff of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. The music Benedict plays on the piano when he comes to visit Basher is called "Requiem for a Dead". It was written and performed by Andy García. The track that plays as the group are escorted from the police station to the black cars is "Margaret" by Giuseppe De Luca. The track that plays as Lahiri cracks Matsui is "El Capitalismo Foraneo" by Gotan Project. "Ascension to Virginity" was taken from the 1968 movie Candy where it likewise appeared in the epilogue -- the version on the soundtrack is the full length version from the Candy soundtrack LP.
There is also a reference to Kashmir, during the meeting between Rusty, Matsui and Danny (who speak an incoherent language code that Linus cannot understand), when Linus recites the first two lines of the song. Matsui takes offence to this, and Linus is told to wait outside. When Danny and Rusty come out, Rusty asks Linus: "Kashmir?".
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