Jason Statham, Ray Winstone, Sam Riley and Mickey Rourke lead the cast in Géla Babluani’s 13, an English language remake of his 2005 13 Tzameti.
Riley plays a young man who finds himself mistakenly caught up in an underground Russian roulette championship in which a variety of hard luck cases compete to be the sole survivor and win a generous cash prize.
The story largely takes place in a single room within a large country house where the competitors, each representing a sponsor, pull the trigger on their opponents and hope theirs is the weapon with a bullet in the chamber.
With the interplay between the competitors largely consisting of them trying to kill one another, there’s little in the way of meaningful dialogue. The plot struggles to fill even the synopsis above and, most cardinal of sins, there’s never even a glimmer of doubt about which character will survive the game.
Added to which, virtually none of them are even remotely likeable, with even Riley’s initially reluctant Vincent rapidly acclimatising to the random murder of his fellow players.
The most reaction the film managed to muster from me was brief pang of sorrow for Winstone’s emotionally vulnerable character who is forced to compete by his domineering brother.
For the rest of the running time I found myself utterly indifferent. An instantly forgettable walk through nearly two hours of mindless violence.
13 is available on DVD and Blu-ray.
