13º Andar

This movie starts out relatively straight with a diamond heist that goes wrong. Everything seemingly normal and slightly tedious, I thought.

The film then slides slowly by inches down the path towards B-movie insanity. The odd thing is, the weirder, gorier and more ridiculous things get, the funnier and more enjoyable it becomes as well.

This is not a dumb film and there is a consistent and thought out story that appears on film, despite the odd silly "rubber chicken" prop moment.

I didn't have any qualms about the acting as the cast did a fantastic job staying in (dodgy Russian) character.

Whilst Brad does a good job keeping the audiences sympathy, supported ably by the very foxy Jamie Murray, a horror movie is only as good as its villains. They don't disappoint and for me are the real stars of this movie with Boris the security guard running a very close second.

Good thing I have nothing against gore in movies. Because of that I had way more fun than I imagined when I rented this movie. It's completely hilarious, from beginning to the end. The overdone Russian accent without anybody ever speaking Russian through the whole movie, the weird characters and the twisted story add up nicely to a movie about one day in the life of one guy that just went completely wrong in every way you could imagine. I half expected a crappy ending to that story, but it fits nicely and left me with a satisfied grin on my face. However: If you can't stomach some gore, cheesy lines and over-the-top acting, then this movie is not for you.

I saw the movie at it's premiere at the Fantasy Filmfest in Munich, Germany, and I have to say it's very entertaining.

The movie itself is not a masterpiece by means of production design, acting, editing, directing or anything else. It is more in the B to C category. Trash, that is. But it is not at all pretending to be anything else. Just the other way around, it embraces it's trashiness by having the villain jumping around in ballet-like moves and similar things. This is one thing that makes this movie very likable. The other is that it is just so funny. If you are not offended by extreme violence and gore.

The theater was packed with the special kind of audience that is attracted to the Fantasy Film Fest, the kind of audience that will applaud and cheer when a head gets cut off and gallons of blood get poured around. But the cheering didn't stop there. As soon as the audience got into the movie, and got over an initial impression of crappiness (like a very rudimentary set, bad editing with scenes that were often just a bit too long and actors that were, with the exception of Stephen Dorff, sub par), it became clear to them that the movie is intended as a comedy and delivered funny and unexpected scenes one after another. And the laughter continued throughout the whole movie.

I really enjoyed the movie a lot, and in retrospect did not notice that it was actually 100 minutes long (although cutting 10 minutes off would have helped).

For it's great entertainment value (and isn't that what movies are all about ? ) I give 7 points. I cannot give less to a movie that I enjoyed so much, even if it has a lot of shortcomings on the technical side.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film. I am a massive fan of the horror/b movie genre dating back to Evil Dead days, and this movie didn't disappoint. With a superb cast of non-Russian speaking actors, it was well done. The twists in this movie are well thought out and dare I say original for once. And the humor, well, it doesn't come any blacker than that. I was most impressed by the gore factor, it wasn't massively over the top like others make it out to be, i was quite surprised by how they sometimes went with "less is more" logic. Very well orchestrated.

A well chosen movie by Stephen Dorff. Keep them coming mate.

9/10

I too saw this last night at the Fantasy Film fest in Berlin where it had its world premiere. I hadn't seen any previews for it and almost didn't go. At the last minute, I changed my mind and grabbed a ticket.

I'm so glad I did!

The first 20 minutes, I thought oh lord, this is going to be terrible. On the contrary, this 20 minutes established the plot line and the first few characters personality and allowed us to figure out who was "serious" and "normal" and who were the slapstick artists playing off the deadpan. Once established, this cheaply made movie was quite simply a laugh riot for those who have a morbid sense of humor and enjoy creative torture methods.

The description in the film fest magazine really says it all: "And you thought you were unlucky? - During a heist in Russia, a professional thief (Dorff) finds himself dealing with twin serial killers, insane hostages, double-crossing psycho Russian hard-men and the real possibility of a horrible death."

By the end, the audience was laughing so hard we had tears in our eyes. It was gruesome, gory, campy and funny. It's one I'm buying when it comes out on video - because it fits my morbid humor quite well.

~Rose