 | MOVIE DETAILS • Name: 13 • Year: 2010 • Country: USA • Director: Géla Babluani • Main cast: Sam Riley, Alice Barrett, Gaby Hoffmann • Runtime: 91 minutes • Production company: Overnight Films, Morabito Picture Company, Barbarian Films • TRAILER |
It is not the first time this happened, and for sure it won’t be the last. Titles like Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-on (2002) and The Grudge (2004), or Ole Bornedal’s Nattevagten (1994) and Nightwatch (1997), or even Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (1997) and Funny Games (2007), just to name a few. All of them, cases when a filmmaker with a successful movie in his own language decides to reshoot the same movie with the same script but this time in english. Why does that happen? There might be many reasons, like taking advantage of a bigger budget, new ideas flew to complete the original story, to be able to use an international and big named cast, because of ugly distribution tricks (like Haneke found himself when he tried to distribute his newer movies in America) or for basic greed for money and instant success. In any case, without judging the morals of why the filmmaker decided (or was forced) to take such a step, we as the audience always end up disappointed since the new version of those movies rarely overcome the originals.
And this is the case for the movie we have in hands right now. 13 is the american version of georgian Géla Babluani’s classic french film 13 Tzameti (2005). The plot is exactly the same, a troubled low class young man impersonates the wrong man and finds himself in an spiral of violence, money, guns and the worst of human kind. The story itself is very interesting as the sub-universe of the oplympic games of russian roulette director Babluani creates, as it was in the original film, but the question in our heads, like in the cases mentioned in the first pharagraph, is always the same: was it necessary?
Yes, it has better budget. And yes, the scenarios and locations are more ellaborated. And of course, yes, we have a handful of big names here starting with the young star of the act played by Sam Riley (who will always be remembered as Joy Division’s Ian Curtis in the wonderful film Control (2007)), and followed by a long list of supporting faces like Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Ray Winstone, Alexander Skarsgård, Michael Shannon, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson or the recently deceased Ben Gazzara. But I think the magic is lost. 13 is a good movie, and if you haven’t seen the original it can still impact you with the crazy fucked up plot, but it can’t be compared with the dirty ambient and creepy black and white film of its predecessor.
After 13, Géla Babluani’s next movie is Money (2016), back to be a french production. Maybe the american adventure didn’t work as expected? Perhaps he didn’t like to deal with big capitalist corporations taking control of his movies. Or maybe he just wanted to see his favorite movie stars using their faces for his characters, just for fun. We don’t know that. But still, who said being a Hollywood director is the way to go? After all, success is to enjoy and make a living with working on what you love. So as far mr Babluani or any other filmmaker can entertain us for a couple of hours with their films, all I can say is “well done” and “thank you”. So thank you.
RATE: 6/10
IMDB URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0798817
