Ocean's 13: Anyone else feel sorry for Willie Banks (spoilers)

Cafe Society
1

I’m rented Ocean’s 13 in my hotel room last night. It was a pleasant movie, though not quite as funny as the other two.

In any case - did anyone else feel sorry for Al Pacino’s character, Willie Banks? Except for coercing Reuben to sign away his share of the casino at the beginning of the film, he seemed like a likeable-enough guy, in general. He’s an ambitious, demanding perfectionist, but many successful people are like that. He’s certainly more likeable than Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia).

I mean, he puts all this time and effort into building a great hotel, he’s understandably proud of the awards his previous hotels have won, and then a bunch of these con men show up, ruin the whole thing on opening night, probably bankrupt him, and steal his most prized possessions. All because he screwed over their thief of a friend.

2

Nope. He had threatened to kill Reuben, and it’s strongly implied that doing such things was standard operating procedure for him (remember Danny had warned Reuben about having anything to do with Banks, and Reuben told Banks that “everybody told me that you’d try to screw me.”)

3

Well, as I said, he seemed likeable enough besides that.

Other than the first few minutes of the film, he really was not written as an evil character.

4

I felt sorry for myself after watching this one. I fell asleep through most of the last half (I think). The whole movie was in search of a reason to happen. Maybe they should pull a heist on that evil dice-making factory in Mexico for Oceans 14. :stuck_out_tongue:

5

Banks just struck me as a real sonofabitch who is ruthless in business and who you don’t want to cross. Nothing wrong with that.

While I think the gang’s response was a bit disproportionate, I couldn’t muster much sympathy for him. He’s a ruthless sonofabitch who got as good as he gave.

Robin

6

This may have been my favorite movie of the trilogy, only because they got rid of Julia Roberts and added a very hot Ellen Barkin.

7

Really? There are people who liked 12 better than 13? I thought 12 was trying to live up to the first one and falling short, while 13 went in a slightly different direction and was done better overall.

To the OP though, from what I can remember, that one act makes him a reprehensible person. I’m sure with 4 other multi-billion dollar hotels though, that this one act of thievery didn’t bankrupt him. Been a bit since I watched it though so I’m a bit fuzzy on details.

8

How many people does he have to cheat and send to the hospital to make him a bad guy in your eyes?

The fact that he doesn’t do it again on screen doesn’t make him admirable, since it’s clear he’d he’d kill us if he had the chance.

9

Well. they didn’t kill him or anything. They didn’t do anything worse than what he did to Reuben. They only did it more imaginatively.