Ocean’s Thirteen

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details of classification and consumer advice lines for Ocean’s Thirteen
• a review of Ocean’s Thirteen completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 21 August 2007.

Overall comments and recommendations

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• themes
• use of violence
• material that may scare or disturb children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie’s message

A synopsis of the story

Reuben Tishkoff (Elliot Gould), friend and mentor to Danny Ocean (George Clooney) suffers a heart attack after being double-crossed by Las Vegas casino boss Willy Banks (Al Pacino). Ocean and his right-hand man Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) decide to reassemble the old team and wreak revenge by financially ruining Banks on his casinos opening night.    
Each of the members of Ocean’s Thirteen has his own part to play in the financial destruction of Banks and his casino, and each of these parts provides a thread in the film’s plot. Basher Tarr (Don Cheadle) operates a tunnelling drill used to simulate an earthquake, which in turn will disable Banks’s state of the art security system. To fix the playing dice used in Banks’s casino, two brothers, Virgil and Turk (Casey Affleck and Scott Caan) infiltrate a plastics factor in Mexico enabling them to tamper with the production of the dice. As a subplot, Virgil and Turk incite a labour dispute and riot. Saul Bloom (Carl Reiner) dons a disguise and personates an English hotel reviewer who is reviewing Banks’s hotel/casino for the prestigious Five Diamonds Hotel Award. Livingston Dell (Eddie Jemison) infiltrates Bank’s casino as a Blackjack dealer. Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon), poses as the assistant of Yen (Shaobo Qin), a wealthy gambler, the altermate goal of this plot being to get Linus closer to Bank’s personal assistant Abigail Sponder (Ellen Barkin). When the tunnelling drill breaks down, Danny Ocean is forced to seek financial assistance from old rival Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), who also happens to be the victim/bad guy from the first Ocean’s Eleven film.
By the time opening night comes around, Saul has totally destroyed any chance of Bank’s winning the famed Five Diamonds Hotel Award. Then at the appointed time, all of Danny Ocean’s scams, plots and sub-plots simultaneously fall into place and the film reaches its exciting climax.

Gambling, crime, revenge

There is some violence in this movie including:

• Two men physically intimidate an older man (Reuben). They threaten to throw him from a high-rise building unless he signs over shares in a hotel/casino. After signing the papers Reuben falls to the ground clutching his chest, suffering a heart attack. Later, he is seen in a hospital bed with tubes attached to his nose and mouth.
• Banks threatens Danny by telling him, “I move quick and when I do I slice…I come down like a hammer.”
• A man places a sharp pin in his shoe and deliberately steps on it to cause pain so that he can beat a lie detector test. The man appears to be in some pain each time he steps on the tack.
• A man who is caught cheating is detained by two security guards, who slam his face into a glass table top and then run him headfirst into a bank of slot machines.
• Two men con their way into another man’s hotel room and sprinkle hazardous chemicals over furniture and bedding. Chemicals are placed into a glass of water, which create noxious fumes causing the room’s occupant to be violently ill. Later a man wakes up in the same room with his face and skin covered in red blotches and rashes. This same man is later intimidated by two hotel staff, who evict him from his room.
• Tainted food is placed in a man’s meal causing the man to become violently ill.
• Danny Ocean coerces/blackmails a casino “pit boss” into tampering with a roulette table.   
• A few scenes contain images of rioting factory workers carrying wooden clubs and throwing rocks at security guards. One man throws a Molotov cocktail that explodes setting a truck on fire. Police are seen in full riot gear complete with bullet proof shields and batons and using fire hoses to hose down the rioting workers.  
• A man swings and jumps between speeding turbo-lift cars. On a couple of occasions he is narrowly missed by the speeding cars.  
• A man is verbally threatened when told, “Do you have all of your affairs in order?”
• Two men are held-up and robbed by a third man, who points a gun at their heads.    
• Bank’s verbally threatens Danny Ocean by stating, “I know people, who really know how to hurt in ways you can’t even imagine.”
• A man threatens three men by telling them they will be dead if they go against him.
• A group of men discuss murdering Banks and then hiding his body. 
• The film contains several explosions designed to destroy property.
• FBI agents burst into a room and point a gun at a man and a woman. The man is handcuffed.

Material that may scare or disturb children

In addition to the above-mentioned violence, there are scenes which may disturb children in this age group, including

• Hundreds of people are frightened by an earthquake tremor and run screaming in a panic from the hotel  
• A man uses ultra violet light to check the cleanliness of the sheets on a bed. The ultra violet light reveals thousands of tiny bugs crawling all over the bed sheets.

Children in this age group may also be disturbed by the above mentioned violence and disturbing scenes.

Children in this age group may also be disturbed by the above mentioned violence and disturbing scenes.

Most children over 13 are unlikely to be disturbed by anything in this film

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

• People drink brand labelled beer.
• One scene contains images of a large poster advertising a brand of tequila.

Sexual references

The film contains occasional low level sexual references including:

• In relation to construction work being carried out on his hotel/casino Banks states, “I don’t want the labour pains just the baby.”
• A waitress is fired as a result of gaining a couple of pounds in weight. When the waitress comments about being fired she is told, “It’s your butt that’s the problem.”
• A group of young attractive women applying for work at Bank’s casino asked Banks, “What do you want us to do?” Banks replied, “Raise your dresses three inches.”
• In one scene Basher Tarr, while working underground was delivered a bag of supplies. When he looks at the supplies, Basher asked, “where are my “mags”? (magazines), the man who delivers the supplies indicates that he couldn’t bring himself to buy the type of magazines that Basher wanted.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

• Women wearing low cut tops that revealed their cleavage were presented throughout the film. Bank’s secretary, Abigail Sponder wears dresses that had plunging neckline revealing ample amounts of her cleavage.
• Several Sumo wrestlers are seen wearing their traditional waistband and thong. A close up rear view is shown of one wrestler bending over.
• Two women dressed in tight fitting revealing clothing receive a phone call and then walk into a man’s trailer. A man wearing motorbike leathers then walks into the trailer, and a short time later the man’s clothing is thrown out the window to be retrieved by a fourth person.
• In an attempt to seduce Abigail, Linus dabs pheromones onto his neck. When Abigail enters Linus’s room she is physically overcome by the smell of the pheromones and appears to be light headed. She becomes breathless and sways back and forth. Linus breaths on Abigail’s neck, Abigail wraps her arms around Linus and the two almost kiss. Abigail sensually rubs her body against Linus and tries to take his shirt off. When the couple feel an earthquake shaking the room, a remark is made that the tremor was a sexual experience. Abigail caresses Linus’s head and neck and tugs at his clothing. The straps of Abigail’s dress fall off of her shoulders, she grabs Linus’s hand and places it on her clothed breast asking Linus if he can feel her heart beating. At this point Linus spills wine on the front of his pants, Abigail says that the wine will stain and then kneels in front of Linus pulling down his pants (the side view of Linus wearing boxer shorts is shown with Abigail’s face in front of Linus’s abdomen). 

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

• There are several scenes of men standing around smoking large cigars.
• Men are seen holding bottles of beer and there is a bottle of tequila on the table, which no one drinks.
• A man sips a drink which appears to be whisky from a glass.
• Pheromones were applied to the side of a man’s neck to assist him in seducing a woman.
• A large group of Japanese gamblers drink shot glasses of sake (alcohol).
• Linus and Abigail drink champagne.
• One scene contains images of Bank’s opening a bottle of Vodka, but we do not see him drink the Vodka. 
• Two men wearing protective masks and gloves enter another man’s room and spread various chemicals around the man’s apartment and on his bedding.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

• Screw Sinatra, shit, butt, pompous arse, bloody, we’re stuffed, bitch, god damn, stupid, maniac, long-hair.  

In a nutshell

Ocean’s Thirteen is a comedy crime thriller about a group of criminals who band together to seek justice and revenge for one of their own. The film targets older adolescent and adults, particularly those who are fans of the film’s stars and enjoyed the previous film in the series.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

• The close bond of friendship and loyalty between Danny and Rusty and other members of the Ocean’s team towards each other.
• The degree of selflessness displayed by Danny and his team towards Reuben.
• The generosity show by Danny and Rusty towards orphan children.

Parents may wish to discuss some attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

• The criminal behaviour of the "heroes"
• The real consequences of the type of revenge shown
• The real life consequences of gambling
• Gender bias, or gender stereotyping