GetPapa Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

manendra-lodhi I always have a fascination for films which are the debut of a director. Plus this film is a nice thriller which is watchable at least once. The film has nothing that special. The story is good but not something innovative. However it is different from what I was seeing recently. The two parts of the film looked to be a lot different and by the time you have finished the film, you will barely have a memory of the first part. This is the major flaw that I think was present for me. Otherwise the film does steal the show in the second part. The acting of the main lead looks dull at some times but then his innocent face manages to save his part. Well when you have a different story to see than acting hardly matters. The way they built up the tension was good and the role of the person organizing the event was the best for me. Even though the film does not offer anything new, it has a sense of refreshment may be owing to the innocent face of the lead actor.MESSAGE: "Destiny is supreme."VERDICT: "A recommended watch once."

billcr12 Sebastien(George Babluani) is working as a roofer at the house of a drug addict who has hired him for repairs. The homeowner soon dies of an overdose and Sebastien has overheard him discussing a mysterious money making opportunity. He finds a train ticket and hotel reservation and uses them to pursue his dream of easy riches. Of course it all goes from bad to worse when Sebastien drifts into an underground, illegal and dangerous gambling operation.The dark and ominous tone is beautifully photographed in black and white, a very wise choice for this highly stylized French drama. It starts slowly but the tension builds gradually and your patience will be rewarded by staying with this gritty and sad observation of human nature. The violence is low key but riveting and unforgettable.

Roger Burke The fundamental requirement for a good story is that it's believable. Get past that hurdle, and viewers will forgive many, perhaps most other aspects of the film. Even movies with complete unknown actors – as in this, 13 Tzameti – suffer nothing, provided there is a believable story. The stark B/W photography works brilliantly, especially for this viewer, evoking murky and sinister plots of yester-year: Reservoir Dogs (1992) and The Asphalt Jungle (1950) come to mind – other exercises in men who get in too deep for their own good...And 13 Tzameti is exclusively about men; and what they do; with and to each other, in secret; for money.So, the plot begins development of that idea as we meet a young handy-man type worker who, quite by chance – a gust of wind, in fact – stumbles upon an opportunity to lift himself out of grinding poverty and "make a bundle", as many like to say; almost like a gift-horse, so to speak. The catch, for the young man, Sebastian (George Babluani) is this: he doesn't know what the "job" is; nor does he know anything about what he's getting into when he uses the train ticket he finds in the envelope brought to him by that fateful wind.Hence, there is a relatively long, but crucial, setup before Sebastian gets on that train – a bit more than the usual twenty minutes I like to allow before I begin to squirm in my seat. This story is worth the wait, however. Because what he discovers and what he experiences is akin to the worst kind of horror you ever can imagine: like a nightmare from which you just cannot awaken – something most of us have experienced in our worst nights of delirium.Bring that into the light of day and you then stay riveted to your seat, your gaze glued to the screen, the tension within your body rising as the suspense builds almost unbearably while the utterly gruesome events of this story inexorably unfold as they must. Only that consummate horror writer, the late Roald Dahl, with some of his outstandingly unbearable stories, comes close to what the viewer sees – and can't take eyes off – in this film. In that regard, the horror contained in Audition (1999), a film I have reviewed here, is an apt comparison.Don't be repelled by my use of 'gruesome': overall, there is very little graphic violence from this first-time director. He directs and uses the camera so well, he leaves it mostly up to your own mind to make it all the worse for you. Others might point to some of the clichéd camera angles used as worthy of criticism; no worse than Tarantino's, in my opinion.What is truly repellent, though, are the characters that Sebastien meets and with whom he must deal. Arguably, even the good guys are bad – just not quite as bad as the totally degenerate bunch that dominates this story. And, this bunch of actors is picture and word perfect for their roles.Sebasten is only twenty-two; and growing up is hard to do, as we all know. So, it's fitting, I think, that this story can also be taken as an allegory for the journey we all make through life – never knowing, from one day to the next, what lies ahead. But, we press on, hoping, always hoping that things will turn out okay…that dreams can come true. Well, today is that next day for Sebastien.Wouldn't you like to join him as he moves bravely forward, eyes wide shut, into the unknown?Highly recommended - but not for the faint-hearted.

erikgloor To some degree, everyone understands that there are universes that run parallel to the more-or-less civilized reality in which most of us go about our daily affairs and that these parallel universes are often as near to us as the other side of a car door. Parallel realities in which various laws or social norms are ignored and in which everyone's general health and well-being aren't necessarily the top priority.And while the shock value of '13 Tzameti' will depend on any given viewer's understanding of the sharp difference in sensibility that will so often characterize the inhabitants of these alternate worlds, newcomer Géla Babluani's second film is nonetheless a compelling parable about the other side of the car door.It is rather a precipitous plunge into just such a parallel universe by a young French handyman that is chronicled in this picture's evenly-paced 93 minutes runtime. The handyman, Sébastien, is making repairs to a beach-front home in France that is owned by a man of some means who has just returned from a trip. But something is wrong: The man is in a state of near total exhaustion. The police are watching the mailbox and the owner's wife is fit to be tied. The only clue as to the man's considerable distress is a letter that arrives before the police can intercept it and which ends up in Sébastien's hands. In it, cash is promised to the recipient for following mysterious instructions requiring travel by train. When Sébastien's fee is jeopardized by the chaos, he endeavors to prove he is the world's stupidest Frenchman by pretending to be the intended recipient and following the instructions himself.Without giving away the form Sébastien's nightmare actually takes in the film, suffice it to say that it is stark indeed.A warped sense of accountability came to define the world of Enron's top officers when that company imploded.Al Capone's parallel universe of speak-easies can be described as one in which Prohibition didn't matter.In '13 Tzameti,' we encounter a culture of behavior more typical of the Roman Empire – one in which human frailty has become a matter for sport.And like the makers of 'The Blair Witch Project,' and 'The Deer Hunter,' what Babluani knows about the horror of stories like these is not the physical peril itself, but its embrace by the weakened and beaten minds that could once have been allied against it. That's what really gets your skin to crawling: collaboration.The French Resistance shaved the heads of Nazi collaborators after World War II and it is fitting that in this French film, the question of collaboration, ultimately, elevates the theme above one of a mere "ain't this awful?" Will Sébastien be a shaver or a shav-ee? A question made all the more important as we learn in the film's DVD release that the story is rooted in real-life accounts of actual events.Shot entirely in black and white, '13 Tzameti' occasionally feels like the graphic novel Frank Miller might have authored had he grown some sense for nuance: The more intense a scene gets, the higher the contrast. At its best, the effect is one of universality -- at worst, an unpolished amateurism.The director's young brother, George Babluani, plays Sébastien and this conceit could have cost the film its authenticity. Despite an expressive face that conveys an interesting mix of intensity and innocence, the younger Babluani is out-acted in nearly every scene that counts and especially by the more experienced Aurélien Recoing who has over 100 films to his credit. Perhaps it is by virtue of the fact that George is playing an inexperienced outsider in this story that he gets away with the performance he provides.Ultimately, what '13 Tzameti' does best is what so many good independent films do and that is to consider topics and themes that go unexamined in the mainstream market.At the very least, after watching this movie, you will think twice about which car doors in life you decide to open.This movie review by Erik Gloor