Thirteenth Floor, The Review

Fuller - Armin Muller-Stahl has created a fully formed self-learning cyber beam with electronically simulated characters. Which means that you can return to Los Angeles in 1937 and really experience it as a person. Fuller does and is murdered. His partner in the present day, Douglas Hall - Craig Bierko - is suspected of the crime and actually suspects himself... he found a bloodstained shirt in his laundry basket and he`s having lapses of memory. But Fuller left a clue on Douglas` answering machine, which necessitates a return to 1937, helped by computer geek Whitney - Vincent D`Onofrio...For quite a bit of its length The Thirteenth Floor is fascinating... it`s a maze of crossed identities, within time zones and between them. You have to add to the plot the presence of Fuller`s daughter - Gretchen Moll - who turns up after her father`s death and who provides a romantic focus for Douglas. But in a funny way where most films are way too long these days I felt that The Thirteenth Floor would have been better if it had given itself more time in which to develop the romance and to resolve itself in a less perfunctory way. Craig Bierko who seems to be a clone of Brendan Fraser is fine as Douglas, Vincent D`Onofrio is solid in multiple roles, Armin Mueller- Stahl is always wonderful, it doesn`t matter what`s around him, but Gretchen Moll is underserviced by the screenplay. Josef Ruznak`s direction and von Schultzendorff`s cinematography work very much in favour of the mood of the film. I actually had a good time with The Thirteenth Floor, until about the last twenty minutes... it`s a shame filmmakers are forced to resolve their movies.