Review of 13 Tzameti (2006) by Xgary X — 22 May 2013

A day labourer whose employer dies of an overdose takes his place at a clandestine meeting hoping for work, but instead finds himself a forced participant for a deadly underground gambling ring. 13 is the low budget debut from Franco-Georgian auteur Gela Babluani and has a kind of brutal intensity that has inspired comparisons with Fight Club because of its premise involving ordinary men engaged in a secret, violent organisation.

This film, although displaying a kind of brutal and gut-wrenching intensity during the incredibly tense "game" sequences, it fails to explore the kind of knowing wit and social satire of David Fincher's film.

The concept of the impoverished and disenfranchised being forced to participate in a game which could result in their deaths while the rich gamble only money they can afford to lose could have made a really nice analogy for the current financial climate, but the script instead settles for taking the safe route of a generic thriller making for a rather unsatisfying ending.

A shame because there's a lot of potential in the idea as political allegory but it's worth seeing for the disturbing duel sequences alone.