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'Ocean's Thirteen'

I'd call it the best of the summer threequels if that wasn't damning with faint praise this summer. This pleasant goof of a revenge comedy finds Danny Ocean's team of con artists back in Vegas after their ill-advised European detour — and up to their Armani collars in schemes. The object this time is to deflate a new nemesis: Al Pacino as a gambling kingpin who's betrayed the group's beloved mentor, Reuben (Elliott Gould), and who's looking to get a five-diamond ranking for his new hotel and casino (a fabulously improbable CGI masterpiece twisting heavenward on the Vegas skyline). Director Steven Soderbergh keeps things snappy and cool, with the sort of double- and triple-crosses that it would be downright criminal to give away. Casey Affleck and Matt Damon have some especially choice comic bits, but those, too, should probably remain surprises, so let's just note that everyone underplays deftly, except Pacino, who's been directed to snarl and bluster so broadly that there's never the slightest question about how richly he deserves his comeuppance.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Bob Mondello reviews movies and covers the arts for NPR and shares critiques and commentaries on NPR's award-winning newsmagazine All Things Considered.