Casino 13

The modern caper movie, such as Steven Soderbergh's "Ocean's Thirteen," dispenses with such tiresome exposition and contains mostly action and movie-star behavior. Only the characters know what the plan is, and we are expected to watch in gratitude and amazement as they disclose it out of their offscreen planning and plotting. Fair enough, if it's done with energy and style. If, however their plan involves elements that are preposterously impossible, I feel as if I'm watching one of Scrooge McDuck's schemes.

All of the "Ocean's" movies, including the long-ago Sinatra version (), are remade or inspired by a great French caper movie, Jean-Pierre Melville's "Bob le Flambeur" ("Bob the Gambler," ), in which Bob actually laid down chalk lines in an open field to walk his accomplices through a raid on a casino. The movie is available on DVD in the Criterion Collection; see what you're missing now that the formula has been adapted for ADD sufferers.

"Ocean's Thirteen" begins as aging and beloved casino legend Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould) plans to open his latest and greatest Vegas casino. Alas, he has taken for a partner the devious double-crosser Willie Banks (Al Pacino, very good), who swindles him out of the casino and lands him in the emergency room with shock and grief. Then Reuben's loyal friends (played by George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, Matt Damon, etc.) gather at his bedside and vow to sabotage the opening of the new casino.

I don't know what kind of resources these rootless but glamorous men have, except that they are apparently unlimited. They manufacture trick-card shufflers, sabotage the roulette wheels and even give the man they think is the guru of casino ratings (David Paymer) something resembling the heartbreak of psoriasis. These plans are not explained; they are simply pulled out of the heroes' hats, or thin air.

To be sure, Soderbergh is a gifted director and (under a pseudonym) cinematographer, and he has a first-rate cast. Most moviegoers will probably feel they got their money's worth, and that's the bottom line. But I grew impatient with the lickety-split pacing. This material is interesting enough that it needs care and attention, not the relentlessness of a slide show.