Reviews in Pop Culture: Ocean’s 13
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
Ahem. Spoilers for Ocean’s 13 here. It’s an old movie, but I’d still hate to ruin it.
MacGuffins, those sought after objects in movies. Whether they are breathing or not (because yeah, they can be people), their true purpose is to give the story purpose. They give the characters something to chase, to pursue, to worry about falling into the wrong hands. None of that really works the same way when the MacGuffin is a review, but it hasn’t stopped movie or tv writers from framing their stories around reviews. You could call it creative, you could call it a challenge, you could call it a change of pace.
In Ocean’s Thirteen, the third in a trilogy of up-down-up heist films, the team gets back to what they are good at: stealing from a casino. Where Ocean’s Twelve took a change of pace, placing the team in Europe and tasking them with an art theft, the followup was a return to form, but not without a change-up thrown in; in addition rigging machines for large payouts and stealing a collection of diamonds (actually a late development), the 13 aim to saddle Al Pacino’s Willy Bank with a bad review for his brand new hotel.
In universe, each of Banks’s previous hotels have received the Five Diamond Award, a real rating, as designated by AAA. This is the highest rating on the 1 to 5 scale, and thus denotes a hotel worthy of the highest recommendation, a location with unmatched service in all areas.
As in previous films, impersonation is in play in order for the squad’s schemes to set off. While Banks knows that a reviewer will visit his hotel during its soft opening, he does not know who the reviewer is by face or name. Because they have their means - and because the movie demands it - Danny Ocean and his crew DO know who the reviewer is, and are thus able to both intercept him, placing him in an inferior room, but also insert their own “VIP” who makes it very clear his eyes are open for what any good reviewer might wish to see.
The real reviewer, now known as the VUP (unimportant, for those keeping score at home), is subjected to comic mistreatment by Ocean’s crew, usually at the hands of the Malloy brothers. The man endures food poisoning, a bug-infested bed, eviction and relocation from his room, the cumulative effects of which understandably lead him to review the hotel in an extremely poor light.
Banks, his hotel and prospects tumbling down around him (due to the mock earthquake, of course), meets the reviewer face to face in the waning moments of the movie, barely realizing and suddenly knowing all too late that he had been catering to a dummy reviewer the whole time. The Five Diamond streak is over, and so is the movie.
But not before our hard-luck reviewer finally gets his just desserts. At the airport as he leaves Las Vegas, he is the unknowing recipient of one final rigged slot machine, winning $11 million for his troubles. I guess wrong place, wrong time doesn’t always stay that way, you never know when the fortunes can turn.
If you haven’t seen any of the Ocean’s movies, give them a try. Light and simple fun, and reviews! What could be more enjoyable?
