** heavy spoiler alert **
Note the spoiler warning. This film isn’t full of twists and it’s not packed with surprises, but it’s one of those films where the drama is best when you learn what is happening as you watch.
13 is a remake of the French film 13 Tzameti and it has quite a cast. It stars unknown Sam Riley as Vincent, an electrician from Ohio. He learns that a man who has just died had some sort of high paying job he was to perform. Vincent decides to take this man’s place and hopes they let him do the job instead, whatever it is. Others in the cast include Alexander Skarsgard, who becomes Vincent’s contact, Ben Gazzara, Ray Winstone, Mickey Rourke, who was recently broken out of a Mexican jail, 50 Cent, who can’t act to save his life, Michael Shannon, who defines overacting in this film, and Jason Statham who becomes the antagonist.
This is an interesting film on many levels. In some ways, I hate it. It’s an ugly film. It feels like it’s shot on low grade film stock. It’s dark. The actors are all kind of ugly. The setting is nasty, it’s not anywhere you would have a picnic. The story is really dark too, and keeps getting darker. These things make the film unpleasant, but they also work in that they make the film much more real than most modern movies. Even the unreal idea of organizing something like this contest is easy to accept since this is done in a dank old mansion with ugly people rather than some ritzy studio set. Indeed, throughout, the film has a quality to it which makes you believe this is really happening, something you never get in the glossy films Hollywood normally makes.
The other thing that’s interesting about this film is the simplicity of the plot. These days, films like this are typically made to be so hip and stylized that you expect double-crosses and triple-crosses and some amazing reveal at the end where you realize the whole thing was a quadruple-cross from the get go. But this film doesn’t do that. This film moves from scene to scene with a strange sort of simplicity and that makes the story stronger. Now, that’s not to say the film is predictable. To the contrary, you never really know what will happen next because the film keeps throwing unexpected things at you. These aren’t big things, they are things like a player asking for a chair or a player having a problem loading a gun, but they are enough to keep you from ever feeling like the plot just moves smoothly to preordained points. Instead, it feels like the film is being made up minute by minute and that adds a real sense of unpredictability to a movie even though the story itself is very predictable.
As I said, this is a fascinating film because none of the elements are very good -- the visuals, the acting, the writing, the plot... all second tier. But all together, they seem to rise above their defects and create a movie that is compelling, even if it wasn’t a movie I liked per se. I recommend giving this one a try.
