Five Thirteen

I totally agree with you Emilie, alshwenbear1 you really have a problem... You might be feminist ??? Maybe you say that because women are very little in the film but their roles are not so sweet for once they don't cry.. and how can you afford that Malik Barnhardt is bad, I find him touching, very involved, his character is Human and Humble so Real.. we can feel he puts his heart... This movie is special, imaginative, I like the way of filming with several stories is very interesting this vision.. I've even seen twice to understand everything.. Tom Sizemore & El Loco are even crazier than usual.. I will be delighted to see on the big screen.. By the way when we can see on the movie theater in my country.. Sincerely Yours. Olivia

Well I decided to give this a go as it looked interesting and to be fair it was interesting to a point.

The actually story here was quite a good one, the problem was the method in which they used to convey the story. The direction was all over the place as were the performances from the actors, but overall the pacing and the way it was presented was the biggest mess.

You could actually sit there and see where the director had time and money to get shots right and where they had to rush shots which ended up looking very amateur, there were certain shots that looked straight out of a college project whereas others were top notch. Same goes for the acting at times it was good and at times it was bad, every female actress in this film was terrible ( as well as all having terrible lip jobs ) . The lead actor Malik Barnhardt overacted in virtually every scene that it became cringe worthy, Sizemore again was hammy but at least he was entertaining. Bokeem Woodbine was decent and stood out admirably in one scene.

There were also some terrible editing decisions, scenes that should/could have been left out and scenes that needed to be in there for the whole thing to make proper sense and give it a proper feel.

In the end it was a film trying to be too many films in one go.

The film however bad in many parts was actually entertaining overall but my my, what a mess of what could have been a good film.

I hope the writer in the future chooses not to direct his own stuff and instead puts it in the hands of a decent Director and probably more importantly an Editor who can chop out all the crap and keep in all the bits relative to story telling and proper pacing e.t.c.

This would probably make a decent book to be honest !

A strange bird of a movie. Brilliant in some of the work, really bad in others. Difficult to give a grade, but it ends up somewhere from mediocre to quite bad. It starts up very good, but goes down from there. Still it's in a way not entirely without interest.

The film starts off with a great tension, when a police man stops by a car where a man is sitting besides a lot of empty bear cans. We understand that there's more to it, because then tension is high, helped our with both the dramatized acting as well as the music. Then with the opening credits we get a stunning birds eye look over the big city, with big sentimental music. Loved the opening. When it starts off like this, it's very promising. But then it's like someone lost it completely.

A nice script idea, though it should maybe have been cut 15-20 minutes, to make it more tight. The film is slow paced, both in rhythm and dialog. It's quite bad-ass In a gangster' way. Maybe the film is trying to be too much? Too many stories in one? Strange ways of using retrospective techniques, as you never knows when it's happening. I think writer, editor and director Kader Ayd should have had some qualified help here, with tidying up the script and some of the other, because with good guidance this could have been a great story.

Tom Sizemore and Danny Trejo are both good psychopaths, as well as James Russo is showing their talents, and knows what to do with their roles. Some if the actors are lesser known, and they are struggling big time under the direction. Not enough to ruin all the tension, though in the beginning, because you hope you'll be able to see through it, but half way you realize it's more than enough to ruin the overall impression.

The film takes on a big job, and the ideas are close to what could have been a very effective thriller, but ending up in an awful mess.

Well, to sum it up, it ends all over the scale:

10) Surprises, and end credits song "Never been in love" by David A Stewart (of Eurythmics) and Charlotte Carter Allen. 9) Idea and inspiration. 8) Talented focused filming, and the panoramas. 7) Opening tension and opening credits. 6) The known actors' acting. 5) The music and overall score. 4) Make up, believability and the incoherent storytelling. 3) Script and the casting of the unknown actors, and their acting. 2) Rhythm, pace and ending pathos. 1) instruction, slow dialog and the overall direction.

Overall score: 3, due to the small parts which made me intrigued, in what is really an unfinished and crappy movie.

Five Thirteen is similar in concept to Crash and Babel in which several people's lives unexpectedly intersect. That may be a weakness to some people, but nevertheless the film held my attention well.

However, this is not the best of films, either. It got a little weak toward the end with how they did the big tie-up, and the Taryn Manning story was the weakest part of it, but there's some solid acting here (some of the cast, anyway) and some surprises along the way too.

I had never heard of Kader Ayd before this and he hasn't directed very many films (none in over 3 years either, so who knows if/when he will) but this is an admirable effort. I will probably watch it again sometime soon.

Watch if you have 2 hours to waste. Do not expect anything and you will possibly enjoy it. Slow paced. Weak story line. Just okay soap opera.