13 minutes christian movie review

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

’13 minutes’: film review.

A monster tornado threatens the residents of a small Oklahoma town in Lindsay Gossling's disaster thriller.

By Frank Scheck

Frank Scheck

• Share this article on Facebook
• Share this article on Twitter
• Share this article on Flipboard
• Share this article on Email
• Show additional share options
• Share this article on Linkedin
• Share this article on Pinit
• Share this article on Reddit
• Share this article on Tumblr
• Share this article on Whatsapp
• Share this article on Print
• Share this article on Comment

Disaster movies used to be fun. Back in the ’70s, they were filled with aging movie stars, many very much in need of a commercial hit, doing things like flying crippled planes, desperately attempting to rescue earthquake victims, swimming underwater in an upside-down ocean liner, and jumping off burning buildings.

Writer-director Lindsay Gossling’s 13 Minutes takes a different approach to the venerable genre. The film uses the familiar disaster movie template to concentrate on hot-button social issues, and boy, there are plenty of them. Before and after a monster tornado wreaks havoc on a small Oklahoma town, the characters grapple with such problems as undocumented immigration, closeted homosexuality, abortion rights, religious intolerance, access to health care, and physical disability. By the time the tornado finally shows up, nearly an hour into the proceedings, it arrives as a blessed relief.

Related Stories

How 'twilight' captured "love that's like a drug", ryan reynolds, amy smart reunite for 'just friends' commercial.

Release Date : Friday, Oct. 29

Cast : Trace Adkins, Yancey Arias, Thora Birch, Peter Facinelli, Amy Smart, Anne Heche, Will Peltz, Davi Santos, Sofia Vassilieva, Paz Vega

Director-screenwriter : Lindsay Gossling

This being a low-budget effort, the film doesn’t feature contemporary movie star equivalents of the likes of Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Gene Hackman or Charlton Heston. The ensemble instead consists of such actors as Paz Vega , Amy Smart , Thora Birch, Yancey Arias, Sofia Vassilieva, Anne Heche , Laura Spencer, Trace Adkins and Peter Facinelli , all of whom do yeoman work but don’t display the star wattage to make us care whether their characters live or die.

Various groups of characters intertwine over the course of one fateful day. The staunchly religious Rick (Adkins) and Tammy (Heche) struggle to keep their farm financially afloat, with Tammy also works at a health clinic where she attempts to persuade young women seeking abortions to have their babies instead. One of those she tries to convert is teenage Maddy (Vassilieva), whose single mother offers a different perspective. Hard-working hotel maid Ana (Vega) very much wants to buy a house for her and her fiancé, Carlos (Arias), but his illegal status prevents him from landing a good-paying job. Rick and Tammy’s closeted gay son, Luke (Will Peltz) finally comes out to his parents, who coldly reject him.

The final set of characters are more familiar types in a movie such as this: an emergency manager, Kim (Smart), who’s keeping track of the tornado, and her television meteorologist husband, Brad (Facinelli). The couple have a young daughter who cannot hear or speak (Shaylee Mansfield, deaf in real life and a very natural screen presence) and who, needless to say, becomes seriously endangered when the storm hits.

The title refers to the impossibly brief amount of time the townspeople are given to get to a shelter before the calamitous tornado arrives, and those moments are the most compelling in the film. Unfortunately, the lengthy character-setting preamble and the climactic segment, which mainly involves survivors desperately combing through the rubble to which the town has largely been reduced, are far less urgent. Not to mention that anyone who’s seen Twister or Into the Storm will be unimpressed by the low-budget special effects on display.

13 Minutes means well in its exploration of social issues in the American heartland, which, aside from religious and opioid-themed dramas, doesn’t get nearly as much big-screen screen attention as it should. But this effort will satisfy neither those looking for sensitive, character-driven drama nor disaster movie fans, the latter of whom will be disappointed by the relative lack of cinematic mayhem.

Full credits

Distributor: Quiver Distribution Production companies: Highland Film Group, Involving Pictures, Impact WX, Elevated Films Cast: Trace Adkins, Yancey Arias, Thora Birch, Peter Facinelli, Amy Smart, Anne Heche, Will Peltz, Davi Santos, Sofia Vassilieva, Paz Vega Director-screenwriter: Lindsay Gossling Producers: Travis Farncombe, Lindsay Gossling, Karen Harnisch Executive producers: Travis Francombe, Lindsay Gossling, Karen Harnisch, Sarah Hooper, Cassian Elwes, Jere Hausfater, Arrian Fraser, Delphine Perrier, Henry Winsterstern Director of photography: Steve Mason Production designer: Ian Phillips Costume designers: Jenava Burguiere, Jack O'Dell Editor: Lisa Grootenboer Composer: Ariel Marx Casting: Shannon Makhanian, Gabrielle Almagor

THR Newsletters

Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Très chic saint laurent prods. unites film and fashion at cannes with three competition titles, cannes hidden gem: elegiac ‘eephus’ captures the “meditative” quality of baseball, donald trump movie ‘the apprentice’ sells to studiocanal for u.k. ahead of cannes premiere, ‘bad boys: ride or die’: first reactions from public screenings, china film pavilion returns to cannes with sights set on future partnerships, hong kong hero peter chan leaves his comfort zone with zhang ziyi-led ‘she’s got no name’.

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

• For Parents
• For Educators
• Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

• Get the app
• Movie Reviews
• Best Movie Lists
• Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

• Best TV Lists
• Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
• Common Sense Selections for TV
• Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

• Book Reviews
• Best Book Lists
• Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

• Game Reviews
• Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

• Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

• Podcast Reviews
• Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

• App Reviews
• Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

• YouTube Channel Reviews
• YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers

• Preschoolers (2-4)
• Little Kids (5-7)
• Big Kids (8-9)
• Pre-Teens (10-12)
• Teens (13+)
• Screen Time
• Social Media
• Online Safety
• Identity and Community

Explaining the News to Our Kids

• Family Tech Planners
• Digital Skills
• All Articles
• Latino Culture
• Black Voices
• Asian Stories
• Native Narratives
• LGBTQ+ Pride
• Best of Diverse Representation List

Celebrating Black History Month

Movies and TV Shows with Arab Leads

Celebrate Hip-Hop's 50th Anniversary

Common sense media reviewers.

Twisty twister tale poses hard questions; peril, language.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Theme focuses on survival, both in a catastrophe a

Several characters demonstrate grace under pressur

Diverse ensemble cast includes a deaf child, a gay

A tornado rips through a town, leaving it utterly

Engaged couple shown in bed together. Woman wears

Strong language includes "goddammit," "s--t," "son

Parents need to know that 13 Minutes is an ensemble disaster drama. Viewers are put in the eye of the storm as a tornado levels a town; characters are in life-threatening peril and suffer bloody injuries, including a mangled limb. The diverse characters' stories highlight their personal challenges living in a…

Positive Messages

Theme focuses on survival, both in a catastrophe and in our everyday lives. Themes include communication, courage, integrity, and self-control.

Positive Role Models

Several characters demonstrate grace under pressure in a variety of ways: A female emergency management team leader is knowledgeable, poised, and calm under high-stress circumstances. A hotel cleaner is proficient and responsible and leads a group to safety. A woman stands up for herself when she's sexually harassed at the workplace and is nonjudgmental when her daughter approaches her with a difficult situation. A migrant worker is comfortable in his own skin and looks out for others.

Diverse Representations

Diverse ensemble cast includes a deaf child, a gay couple, and kind, brave immigrants. A Native American character is a key member of a city management team. Storylines thoughtfully shed light on the characters' challenges,

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

A tornado rips through a town, leaving it utterly destroyed; destruction is shown from the perspective of the people caught in the eye of the storm. Blood, cuts, and bruises; people who appear to be dying. Graphic limb injury. An employer inappropriately touches his female employee, who immediately tells him that it's unacceptable and there will be consequences if the behavior occurs again.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Engaged couple shown in bed together. Woman wears low-cut nightgown. One character is depicted in a morning-after situation where it's implied that he's naked under the covers.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Strong language includes "goddammit," "s--t," "son of a bitch," "Jesus" (exclamatory), and a single use of "f--k." Racial slur ("spics") and demeaning language and attitudes toward immigrants.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that 13 Minutes is an ensemble disaster drama. Viewers are put in the eye of the storm as a tornado levels a town; characters are in life-threatening peril and suffer bloody injuries, including a mangled limb. The diverse characters' stories highlight their personal challenges living in a conservative community. Representations include working parents with a deaf child, immigrants pursuing the American dream, a pregnant teen deliberating her options, and a closeted gay man. The hurtful/judgmental belittlements, superior attitudes, and "well meaning" behavior shown toward these characters helps viewers understand their pain and promotes empathy. At the same time, the movie shows how communities can put their smallness aside and come together in times of crisis. Expect a few instances of strong language ("s--t," "f--k," "Jesus") and a couple of slurs. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (3)

Based on 3 parent reviews

What's the Story?

In the small farming town of Minninnewah, Oklahoma, storms are a way of life. But when the emergency warning system activates to warn residents about a treacherous tornado that's headed right for the city center, residents of all walks of life have just 13 MINUTES to get to safety.

Is It Any Good?

In Lindsay Gossling's impressive feature writing and directing debut, Minninnewah is ripped apart by residents' own smallness and judgments as much as the twister that threatens to destroy them. And the outcome of this slice-of-life suspenser is just as unpredictable as that of the path of a tornado. That's because it examines everyday actions and attitudes that dot the American landscape, leaving it up to viewers to determine what's right and what's wrong. And while there are a lot of characters to get to know in a short amount of time, they're not underdeveloped; they do things and make decisions that some viewers may see as villainous and others might cheer on.

In a small community, it's not uncommon for the lives of families of diverse backgrounds to intertwine. Here, we get a wide range of folks, all facing dilemmas meant to prompt viewers to examine their own thought process. Upper-middle-class parents Kim and Brad ( Amy Smart and Peter Facinelli ) both work in the weather industry and know that an epic weather event is headed their way: Should they serve their community by doing their jobs and leave their deaf daughter with a trusted babysitter, or should a parent be with their child (and, if so, which parent)? Pregnant teen Maddy is grappling with making the right decision for her, getting advice and pressure from those whose personal views and wishes may not be aligned with her own. Hardworking, skilled mechanic Carlos (Yancey Arias) is in the country illegally to marry the love of his life: Do you judge him or relate to his plight? Young farmer Luke (Will Peltz) is working on accepting his sexuality, and his boyfriend has given him an ultimatum to come out to his religious parents or lose the relationship -- which consequence is worse? This is a story of the heartland, not Hollywood, so don't expect the ending to be wrapped in a bow -- it's realistically messy, just like debris spread across the plain after an F5 storm.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how movies and TV shows allow viewers to walk in someone else's shoes. Did you feel surprised by anything that the characters experienced? How does that help build empathy ?

What does "slice of life" mean? Can a film fit into this genre and also be a drama, an action, or a suspense film? Where would you place 13 Miinutes ?

What is the film's message? What do you think happens to the characters later?

How does the movie promote communication , courage , integrity , and self-control ? Why are those important character strengths ?

Movie Details

• In theaters : October 29, 2021
• On DVD or streaming : December 7, 2021
• Cast : Paz Vega , Thora Birch , Anne Heche
• Director : Lindsay Gossling
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Quiver Distribution
• Genre : Drama
• Topics : Science and Nature
• Character Strengths : Communication , Courage , Integrity , Self-control
• Run time : 108 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : peril, bloody images, thematic elements and some strong language
• Last updated : November 17, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

Our editors recommend.

Into the Storm

The Wizard of Oz

The Perfect Storm

Best action movies for kids, drama movies that tug at the heartstrings, related topics.

• Communication
• Self-control
• Science and Nature

Want suggestions based on your streaming services? Get personalized recommendations

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors.

Now streaming on:

The German director Oliver Hirschbiegel impressed viewers the world over with his brutal and psychologically astute 2001 film “The Experiment,” but it was with 2004’s “ Downfall ,” a spectacularly effective picture about Hitler in his last days, that he not only made his reputation as a world-class filmmaker but also inadvertently created an Internet meme. 

Yes, every time some wise guy puts a subtitled scene of Hitler reacting badly to something that has nothing to do with Hitler pops up on YouTube, it’s using “Downfall” as the source material. And yet—and this is a testimony to the power of that movie—one can to this day watch an unmodified “Downfall” and be engrossed and appalled by its whole, and by that scene. (The fact that Hitler is being played by the amazing Bruno Ganz is a bit plus here of course.)

Hirschbiegel’s career has had some dips since then. A curious 2007 rethink of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” titled “ The Invasion ,” was a fever-paced head-scratcher. His 2013 Princess Diana biopic proved a massive miscalculation. A cynic might say that after that disaster a revisitation of German history on the level of “Downfall” might be an apt way to revive a damaged career. But “13 Minutes” is too good on its own terms to support such a reading. It’s a genuine achievement on an inexhaustible subject. 

The movie begins with its lead character, Georg Elser ( Christian Friedel ) rigging a bomb into a wall. It’s a big one, too; he’s packed at least a dozen sticks of dynamite in it. He then rigs a timing mechanism, and the camera dollies out to show a table with a placard on it reading “The Fuhrer’s Chair.”

It’s 1939, six years and change since Hitler took power. A few months ago, Britain and France declared war on Germany. The bomb is timed to go off on November 8, the anniversary of the-now-Fuhrer’s failed Beer Hall Putsch. And so it does—13 minutes after Hitler leaves the packed beer hall where he addressed a friendly crowd. Many died, many were injured, but Hitler escaped. And was infuriated. 

Elser seems an unlikely assassin. True, he looks appropriately panicked when he is apprehended shortly after the explosion, but when the movie flashes back to 1932, and his life in a village by Lake Constance, he’s a cheerful accordion player and woodworker. One of the most effective aspects of the movie is its depiction of how the Nazi poison seeped into the provinces, abetted by bigots who recognized that der zeit was now on their side. One morning Elser is walking through the village square with a young boy, who parrots some anti-Semitic gossip he heard from his father. “When did you get to be a moron all of a sudden,” Elser says jokingly to the little boy. He hasn’t much time to remain cheerful.

While he describes himself as non-political to his Nazi torturers, he participates in some resistance, keeping lookout for friends painting anti-Nazi graffiti. He lives dangerously in other respects too, having an affair with a married woman, Elsa ( Katharina Schüttler ) at whose house he eventually boards. These scenes are interspersed between bouts of VERY enhanced interrogation at the hands of the Nazis, and there’s a behind-the-scenes intrigue too. SS honcho Heinrich Müller (Johann von Bülow) insists to police chief Arthur Nebe ( Burghart Klaußner ) that a full confession is necessary; as Germany goes to war, Goebbels and Hitler are both eager to bolster a conspiracy/martyrdom narrative. Once the Nazi’s dangle Elsa and her safety before Elser’s eyes, the confession, which he had been withholding despite gruesome, grisly torture (which is depicted in some detail), comes quickly. The psychological gamesmanship comes courtesy of Nebe, who’s the “good German” for the purposes of this scenario. (The film later reveals what those who know a little about the Third Reich are aware of: that Nebe was part of a subsequent assassination attempt against Hitler in July 1944. For all that, there is some substantial doubt in historical circles as to just how good of a good German he was.) The Nazis want Elser to admit to a conspiracy, but he insists, and the film shows, that he was a man alone.

He insists this was the case, and the reason he gives to his interrogators is simple: “Nobody would have joined me.” Looking at Germany from the end of World War I all the way to the beginning of the next World War, one is frequently moved to ask, “Why didn’t anybody do anything?” “13 Minutes” offers, in a more or less conventional narrative form, some tentative answers to that question, all of them uncomfortable. 

Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

Now playing

Matt Zoller Seitz

Kim's Video

Brian tallerico.

Sasquatch Sunset

Monica castillo.

Jeanne du Barry

Sheila o'malley.

A Man in Full

Rendy jones, film credits.

13 Minutes (2017)

Rated R for disturbing violence and some sexuality.

114 minutes

Christian Friedel as Georg Elser

Katharina Schüttler as Elsa

Burghart Klaußner as Nebe

Johann von Bülow as Heinrich Müller

Felix Eitner as Eberle

David Zimmerschied as Josef Schurr

• Oliver Hirschbiegel
• Léonie-Claire Breinersdorfer
• Fred Breinersdorfer

Cinematographer

• Judith Kaufmann
• Alexander Dittner
• David Holmes

Latest blog posts

Roger Corman's Greatest Legacy Was Giving So Many People Their Big Break

The Red Carpets of the 2024 Chicago Critics Film Festival

Fated for All: Romanclusivity Captures Our Hearts in Bridgerton and Beyond

Cannes 2024: The Second Act, Abel Gance's Napoleon

Advertisement

Supported by

Review: From Wooing Women to Plotting Hitler’s Murder in ‘13 Minutes’

• Share full article

By Jeannette Catsoulis

• June 29, 2017

A charming hedonist becomes an unlikely would-be assassin in “13 Minutes,” a respectful but labored biopic of a village carpenter whose 1939 plot to blow up the Führer was foiled by bad timing.

Though ruthlessly romanticized and swimming in Holocaust-drama clichés — like the pallidly venomous Nazi interrogator — the story of how Georg Elser (an endearing Christian Friedel) transformed from mischievous ladies’ man to determined bomb maker is worth the telling. And for a while, it’s even quite gripping as we watch Elser painstakingly plant his intricate device in a vast beer hall in Munich where Hitler is to speak.

As directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, however, Elser’s capture and lengthy questioning by the Gestapo is a wasted opportunity to illuminate the mind of a man whom historical accounts variously describe as apolitical yet deeply concerned with workers’ rights. Bucolic flashbacks to lakeside picnics, where ripe young women vie for Elser’s floppy-haired attentions and accordion serenades, reveal little about his beliefs or ambitions. Neither does his awkward incursion into the dismal marriage of his lover (Katharina Schüttler) and her sozzled husband.

As it happens, the movie’s most compelling interaction is between Elser and a cautious police chief played by the admirable Burghart Klaussner, who achieves more with pursed lips and lowered eyelids than most actors manage with a page of dialogue. It’s a performance that leaves space for nuanced interpretation — something that the rest of this overly conventional picture sorely lacks.

With a little more shading and originality, “13 Minutes” might have pushed beyond its familiar Nazi tropes to shape something more immediate and infinitely more potent: an ominous portrait of radicalization.

Rated R for extemporaneous cruelty and extramarital sex. In German, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes.

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next we can help..

Of the 40 combined seasons of “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette,” only eight couples have stayed together. We spoke to former contestants and leads  about roadblocks to a happy ending.

Shows like “Law & Order: SVU,” “NCIS” and “Grey’s Anatomy” have kept fans hooked for 20 seasons or more. How do they do it ?

Playing the title character in “Furiosa,” the 28-year-old star Anya Taylor-Joy says , “I’ve never been more alone than making that movie.”

The new Hulu docuseries “Black Twitter” explores how a social media subculture  influenced American culture at large.

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings   on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime  and Hulu  to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter  to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

13 MINUTES is powerful, heartbreaking, hopeful

13 MINUTES is an intense and personal character study, not only of individuals but of them collectively and as a community, as a town; a slice of life in Anytown, USA. Powerful. Heartbreaking. Hopeful.

Written and directed by Lindsay Gossling, with story by renowned stormchaser Travis Farncombe, 13 MINUTES is the story of one afternoon in the small Heartland town of Minninnewah; an afternoon that within the span of 13 minutes will change forever. Grounding the story and the visuals in the realities of a “severe weather day”, it’s springtime in this region known colloquially as “Tornado Alley” where big storms are commonplace. Of course, big storms can turn into much more than thunder, lightning, torrential rains, and whipping winds. They can turn into earth-scorching tornadoes. And when those big storms hit and early warning systems sound, residents have only 13 MINUTES to get to shelter. Average spring day, that’s exactly what happens in Minninnewah when alarms sound and everyone has just 13 MINUTES to get to shelter before the largest F5 tornado on record ravages the town. Lasting mere minutes, as survivors walk or crawl out into the light of day, they are met with total devastation as they search for their loved ones and fight for their lives. As is so often the case, only the strongest will survive. But in a town like Minninnewah with diversity, differences, and interpersonal conflicts raging, can these people, these families, rise above those differences and find a common strength in order to survive.

Riveting, 13 MINUTES draws us into the average life of each of these individuals as they deal with personal demons and prejudices from others, as they dress for work, go to work, eat breakfast, drop kids off at school, etc. With just the everyday routine of each person/couple/family, you quickly became invested in their individual and collective lives. You feel like you know these people, be they neighbors, friends, or someone whose face you merely recognize as being “a local.” The diversity of the characters is outstanding. Women, men, children, a deaf child, a non-English speaking immigrant trying to learn English, working parents whose very jobs are essential to the public when it comes to disasters which force choices of “my family” or yours”, the generational farmer whose existence is steeped in faith complete with prejudices, young gay men afraid to speak out, a pregnant unmarried young girl with a real douche for a “boyfriend”, and all economic strata. You find this slice of life in virtually every town in the US.

Hooking us with the interpersonal dramas and the three-dimensionality of the townspeople we meet, where Lindsay Gossling soars is with the tornado. Race, religion, gender, sex, ethnicity, language barriers, economics – none of that matters as everyone shares the experience of loss and disaster and fear and the unknown. Watching this shared experience unfold and the reactions of all is powerful and heartbreaking.

And let’s not overlook the fact that the focus of the film is on the women and seen primarily through the POV of the women, notably Paz Vega’s character of Ana, Thora Birch’s Jess, Amy Smart’s Kim, Anne Heche’s Tammy, Sofia Vassilieva’s Maddy, and Shaylee Mansfield’s Peyton. Not only all women, but women in different stages of life be it age from elementary school to women in their 50’s and everything in-between, demographics, or economics.

Casting is king in this film and it starts with Paz Vega. She is the glue of this film. Strong, unwavering, upbeat, ever hopeful and optimistic, believing in the American dream. Her character of Ana has her eye on a house at the end of town and her joy at meeting with the realtor with the purchase paperwork is palpable. Vega commands the screen with a welcoming calm as the motel in which she works as a housekeeper is getting ready to fall down around them. Ana thinks fast and on her feet to get everyone to safety in the freezer. And although her husband Carlos is somewhere else, she may wonder about him and worry as he speaks little to no English, but it doesn’t stop her from putting one foot in front of the other and helping those in need. When we finally see Ana sit down on the folding chair outside the church, able to take a breath, we are taking that breath with her. It is impossible not to be invested in Ana thanks to Vega’s believable and resonant performance.

Standing alongside Vega is Thora Birch. And I admit, I almost had a heart attack when I realized that Thora Birch is now old enough to play a character with a 19 or 20-year-old daughter. A heartfelt and complex performance by Birch. Anne Heche as religious holy roller Tammy married to a generational farmer works very well. Heche is solid and what is particularly interesting is the character’s refusal to acknowledge her son Luke who has just come out as gay. Heche embraces the role with proud defiance.

Yancey Arias is a joy as Carlos. Quiet and unassuming. Eager. Amy Smart, as a savvy smart EMS specialist, finds a resonant and believable balance with Tammy while Peter Facinelli as Tammy’s husband Brad is an interesting – yet appropriate – casting for weathercaster Brad. Brad is more worried about his hair and his suit than the safety of his deaf daughter. And who doesn’t love seeing Trace Adkins pop up. As Tammy’s husband, farmer Rick, believability is an understatement. A real treat is Tokala Black Elk who handily tackles the role of Tammy’s colleague at EMS. So underrated as an actor, this is just another example of why there’s a lot more to him than what we see in projects like “Yellowstone” and “Wind River”.

But your heart will be stolen by Shaylee Mansfield as Tammy and Brad’s deaf daughter, Peyton. Deaf in real life, Mansfield soars with a tacit knowing and innocence that will rip you to shreds as we watch the tornado hit and Peyton is not only caught in it, but trapped, and subsequently missing – and her hearing aids are gone. Can her own instincts save her?

Calling on Farncombe’s expertise, 13 MINUTES focuses on a specific type of F5 tornado and the weather patterns inherent to it, translating that not only visually, but emotionally so that the darkening skies and changing air patterns mirror not only the dramatic build of the tornado but the dramatic arc of each character’s story.

Long a fan of cinematographer Steve Mason’s work, his use of light and lens in 13 MINUTES is outstanding. Melding the weather patterns of the pre-tornado and post-tornado skies with a delicate balance of in-camera work and VFX is visually stunning and perfectly matches the emotional beats of the intensifying day of building conflicts among the townspeople as well as being authentic to actual sky patterns for a storm of this specific nature.

Lighting palette changes throughout the film as the skies and the light changes during the course of the day. Similarly, the camera movement, with some keen gimbal work, comes into play as we go from Steadi-cam and sticks to handheld during and after the Tornado and back to sticks. Mason keeps interiors in a mid to close two-shot allowing us to feel the aloneness and loss post-tornado even more as everything and everyone is spread out.

And then there is the aftermath of the tornado and the destruction itself. An entire town decimated down to the ground. So desirous of authenticity that Gossling and her team, under the leadership of production designer Ian Phillips and set dresser Jennifer Giron, created the destruction with a breakdown of approximately 80% practical in-camera physical with a 20% VFX blend, bringing in over 80 truckloads of construction debris from a nearby neighborhood construction. The trick then became placing all of the debris in such a fashion so as to mirror that of a tornado versus a hurricane or earthquake. The result speaks for itself.

Ariel Marx’ score is beyond noteworthy. Serving as a beautiful, soft undercurrent, it builds almost in tandem with the winds of the tornado until disaster strikes when she switches the musical current with a clean, simple, beauty that is haunting and hopeful. And the sound mix of score, tornado winds, whipping rain, physical destruction, and dialogue is not only impeccable but chillingly authentic.

As authentic and powerful as the visuals of 13 MINUTES are, it’s not as much the “disaster” aspect of the film that stands out as the heart that Gossling captures and brings to life. This is every town USA. And thanks to global warming and shifting weather patterns, this could happen anywhere. But it’s looking at the people individually and as a town that shines brightest.

Gossling has done an exemplary job of bringing us into this world of the power of Mother Nature, the power of kindness, and the power of humanity when it comes together.

Directed by: Lindsay Gossling Written by Lindsay Gossling and Travis Farncombe

Cast: Amy Smart, Thora Birch, Peter Facinelli, Trace Adkins, Paz Vega, Anne Heche, Sofia Vassilieva, Laura Spencer, Yancey Arias, Shaylee Mansfield, Trace Adkins, Will Peltz, Tokala Black Elk

By debbie elias, September 21, 2021

Site Development: SoCal Web Content

Find Family Movies, Movie Ratings and Movie Reviews

13 Minutes Parent Guide

With too many characters and plot elements, this movie will have viewers' head spinning before the tornado roars into town..

In Theaters: The residents of a town in the prairies have their lives upended when a tornado tears through their community.

Release date October 29, 2021

Run Time: 108 minutes

Get Content Details

The guide to our grades, parent movie review by kirsten hawkes.

We’ve all seen the aftermath of tornadoes on the evening news – houses crushed like matchsticks, cars flipped over, huge swaths of communities destroyed. If you ever wondered what it’s like to live through one of these climate disasters, 13 Minutes brings the horrifying reality to the big screen.

Natural disaster movies tend to follow a pattern: introduce the main characters, watch as a disaster strikes their unsuspecting community, and show the protagonists recovering from the catastrophe. Where 13 Minutes fails is in the first section. This movie has such a huge cast of characters that it’s almost impossible to care deeply about any of them, simply because there isn’t enough time to get to know them well. They are all sketched out in broad strokes, existing in shorthand, but not as real people.

On top of overstuffing the casting roster, 13 Minutes shoehorns in too many storylines – in fact, it starts to feel like a soap opera mixed in with an emergency public service announcement. There’s a subplot about accepting gay family members and a recurring theme about valuing the work and sacrifices of immigrants. There’s also a story arc about abortion which will upset viewers on both sides of the fence. When Maddy goes to a women’s health clinic for what she thinks is abortion counseling, the woman performing the ultrasound repeatedly urges her to marry the father. Her behavior is so intrusive, so overbearing that regardless of your beliefs about abortion, this must be seen as a significant ethical breach for anyone providing medical services. On the flip side, Maddy’s mother bluntly tells her that it’s her body, her choice - and she should only have the baby if she’s prepared to raise it. I’m not sure why the screenwriters included this plotline: it’s not necessary to the film and it will alienate viewers on both the pro-life and pro-choice sides of the debate

Disaster fans who have gamely disentangled the multiple plot lines will finally feel like they’ve got their money’s worth when the storm hits. This tornado is terrifying. When the giant funnel seen over the town, it’s scary enough, but then the rain, winds, and hail come roaring in. As the storm rumbles through town, it destroys everything – tossing around vehicles, throwing buildings apart, and even punching steel walls. When it finally ends, the survivors stagger into the sunlight, looking at a landscape as alien as the moon.

13 Minutes can be a scary movie, but it also provides messages about family devotion, commitment, self-awareness, courage, authenticity, sacrifice and love. If the plot’s excesses don’t deter you, the film has some great messages about public service and pulling together. This movie will give you plenty to talk about with your teens – and might even get them to pay attention when you organize a family emergency plan.

About author

Kirsten hawkes, watch the trailer for 13 minutes.

13 Minutes Rating & Content Info

Why is 13 Minutes rated PG-13? 13 Minutes is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for peril, bloody images, thematic elements and some strong language

Violence:   Lightning strikes a barn, causing a fire. A man throws an alarm clock at a hotel maid. Boys accidentally knock over a little girl. Scenes of mild cartoon violence are seen on TV. There are scenes of extreme peril as people are caught in a tornado. There are scenes of destruction. A man’s hand is caught in a vehicle and he cuts it out as he screams; blood is visible. Dead and wounded people are seen in the debris. Sexual Content: An unmarried couple are seen in bed together but without any sexual activity. An unmarried woman tries to decide what to do about her pregnancy. A man slaps a coworker’s behind. A man tells his parents that he’s gay. Two gay men embrace. Profanity:   There are just over a dozen profanities in the movie including a single sexual expletive, five scatological curses, four terms of deity, a minor profanity, and an anatomical expression. There is also an ethnic slur aimed at a Hispanic man. Alcohol / Drug Use:   None noted.

Page last updated February 24, 2022

13 Minutes Parents' Guide

What natural disasters or climate emergencies are most common in your region? What advice do local emergency authorities provide to residents? Do you have an emergency plan for your family? What can you do to be more prepared?

You can find information about tornado safety here:

CDC: Staying Safe in a Tornado

FEMA: Tornado

Canadian Red Cross: Tornadoes: Before, During & After

For general advice about emergency preparedness, you can follow these links:

Ready.gov: Disasters and Emergencies

FEMA: Are You Ready?

Ready.gov: Build a Kit

Canadian Red Cross: Be Ready: Emergency Preparedness and Recovery

Related home video titles:

If you can’t get enough of tornadoes, you can watch Twister , which stars Helen Hunt as a storm chaser who gets more than she bargains for. Into the Storm tells the story of a group of high school students who try to document a tornado – from the inside. Just add water and you’ll get a hurricane, which is the event that triggers The Perfect Storm . In this movie, a fishing boat is caught in a hurricane and its crew struggles to survive.

ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

Female Film Critics 24/375

13 MINUTES – Review by Brandy McDonnell

It’s hard to imagine a more ideal spot to make a tornado movie than central Oklahoma.

But the independent film “13 Minutes”  wants to talk about more than just the weather. Written, directed and produced by Lindsay Gossling (“Un Traductor”), the twister drama spins through a veritable tsunami of hot-button social issues in the build-up to the rampaging storm.

Filmed in November and December 2019 with Oklahoma City and the surrounding areas as the primary location, “13 Minutes” opened Oct. 29 in theaters and is due out on-demand and on digital Nov. 19.

“13 Minutes” follows the diverse denizens of the fictional Oklahoma town of Minninnewah, who are going about their interconnected lives in the hours before a severe spring storm sweeps down the plains.

Farmers Rick (Trace Adkins, “I Can Only Imagine”) and (Anne Heche, “Six Days Seven Nights”) are struggling to make ends meet, even with her side gig as an ultrasound technician. The couple are conservative Christians who don’t yet realize that their only son, Luke (Will Peltz, “Unfriended”), is gay and having an affair with Daniel (Davi Santos, NBC’s “Law & Order True Crime”), one of their Hispanic hired hands.

Newly employed on Rick and Tammy’s farm is Carlos (Yancey Arias, Amazon Studios’ series “Bosch”), an undocumented immigrant who is a skilled mechanic but speaks little English. His fiancee Ana (Paz Vega, “Spanglish”), a Mexican maid at the local motel, is getting ready to buy them a house and is thrilled at the possibility of achieving the American dream.

Working next door to Ana at the counter of the town auto shop is Jess (Thora Birch, “American Beauty”), a pragmatic single mom whose teenage daughter, Maddy (Sofia Vassilieva, Hulu’s “Looking for Alaska”), is newly pregnant by Eric (James Austin Kerr, “Awake”) a traveling salesman twice her age.

Along with working part-time as a hair stylist, Maddy is the part-time babysitter for Peyton (real-life deaf actor Shaylee Mansfield, “Noelle”), the hearing-impaired young daughter of Kim (Amy Smart, The CW’s DC series “Stargirl”), the regional emergency manager, and Brad (Peter Facinelli, “The Twilight Saga” movies, the upcoming “The Unbreakable Boy”), a TV meteorologist.

Even as storms start roiling around state – with the weather services warning of ingredients coming together for possibly devastating tornadoes – the residents of the Heartland hamlet go about their lives. Gossling mixes in issues like racism, abortion, homophobia, immigration and more — along with obliquely referencing climate change — but they don’t seem to flow naturally into the storytelling and slow the pacing of the film.

The experience cast supplies mostly solid performances, but the actors are hindered by the shaky narrative, which swirls with implausible plot twists and out-of-character choices.

Although the special effects are obviously lower budget than previous stormy films like “Twister,” the cinematic tornadoes of “13 Minutes” are passably intimidating. Gossling’s crew — consisting of about 75% Oklahomans — does stellar work recreating the aftermath of a destructive twister, complete with delicate objects like vases and picture frames left unscathed amid the sprawling wreckage.

To its credit, the movie — named for the short time frame residents have to seek shelter before the massive tornado touches down — is willing to delve into the lives and issues of small-town residents of the often-ignored “flyover states” without too much judgment.

It offers a close-up look at the twisters that plague Tornado Alley without overly sensationalizing them, with effective reminders that for folks who don’t speak English or have disabilities, weathering these storms can be particularly difficult.

But “13 Minutes” doesn’t offer many interesting insights or much compelling storytelling.

• ← RED NOTICE – Review by Susan Granger
• NIGHT RAIDERS – Review by Karen Peterson →

Brandy McDonnell

Brandy McDonnell writes features and reviews movies, music, events and the arts for The Oklahoman, Oklahoma's statewide newspaper, and NewsOK.com, the state's largest news Web site. Raised on a farm near Lindsay, Okla., she started her journalism career in seventh grade, when she was elected reporter for her school's 4-H Club. Taking her duties seriously, she began submitting stories to The Lindsay News, and worked for the local weekly through high school. She attended Oklahoma State University, where she worked for The Daily O'Collegian and earned her journalism degree with honors. She worked for three years at small Oklahoma dailies The Edmond Sun and Shawnee News-Star. In 2002, she joined The Oklahoman as a features reporter, writing about movies, the arts, events, families and nonprofits. She moved to The Oklahoman's entertainment desk in 2007. In 2004, she won a prestigious Journalism Fellowship in Child & Family Policy from the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism. Along with her membership in AWFJ, she also is a founding member of the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle. Brandy writes The Week In Women blog for AWFJ.org.

• / Presented by High-Def Digest
• 3D Hardware
• 3D Software
• Film Festivals

In Theaters Now

• Movie & TV Awards
• Movie Merchandise
• Upcoming Movies
• Conferences & Conventions
• Blu-ray & Discs
• Streaming & VOD
• Design & Accessories
• Mobile & Gadgets
• Basic Cable
• Premium Channels
• Back to High-Def Digest

Previous Post

’13 Minutes’ Review: Before the Downfall

'13 minutes', movie rating:.

From Oliver Hirschbiegel, the director of ‘ Downfall ‘ comes another tale of dastardly Nazis and moral ambiguity. Though it likely won’t become a meme-worthy classic like that previous feature, ’13 Minutes’ is an intense historical thriller that treks through well-worn territory to find something fresh. You wouldn’t think there would be another story about the Third Reich worth exploring on screen these days, but Hirschbiegel found one and it’s an impressive piece of work.

The film takes place in 1939, six years after Hitler took power. We open on Georg Elser (Christian Friedel) packing a pretty serious bomb onto what is slowly revealed to be “The Fuhrer’s Chair.” The bomb goes off, but sadly 15 minutes too late. Elser is captured, interrogated and tortured relentlessly by the Nazis, who find it impossible to believe that the young man acted alone. But he did.

Through flashback, we slowly learn what brought Elser to this place. In 1932, he was a carpenter by trade and an accordion player by passion (like Weird Al!). Slowly, we see the way the Nazis’ bigoted belief system poisons even his isolated community. He becomes radicalized. At first, that means acting as lookout for some friends painting anti-Nazi graffiti, but obviously that seed grows into more dramatic action. Back in the primary timeline, SS big bad Heinrich Müller (Johann von Bülow) demands that the local police chief Arthur Nebe (Burghart Klaußner) get a full confession out of Elser revealing a vast conspiracy (that didn’t exist) to play into their propaganda machine.

It’s safe to say that ’13 Minutes’ isn’t exactly the feel-good blockbuster of the summer. However, it’s a sobering and powerful film that serves as welcome counter-programming to all the candy-colored heroic spectacle playing in neighboring theaters. While director Hirschbiegel might not manage to muster the brutally gripping nature of his last WWII picture, the film is gorgeously shot and performed with passion by all those who grace the screen. Cinematography shifts from the postcard imagery of a lost paradise 1930s Germany to dread-filled shadows blanketing the Nazi regime. The movie has some almost unbearably tense scenes of suspense and tortuous anguish. Christian Friedel delivers a brilliant lead performance of stoic silence and hidden strength, while both Johann von Bülow and Burghart Klaußner are given more shades of gray to their characters than other filmmakers would allow.

While the film is most certainly a period piece that has been carefully crafted to embody 1930s Germany, it also has a certain contemporary resonance. The way that Elser’s hometown is creepily emboldened by the hatred and xenophobia of Nazi propaganda feels very much reflective of the recent radical political changes worldwide. That’s not to say that Hirshbiegel intended this to be some sort of contemporary allegory or cautionary tale. (Many films, including ‘Cabaret’, dug around this ground before.) No, ’13 Minutes’ is first and foremost a dramatic thriller set within World War II and a work of lightly fictionalized history. However, those seeds of contemporary unrest give the film a little added potency. That’s a good thing given that the main subject matter is so familiar and Hirshbiegel’s commitment to somber realism and historical accuracy can often rob the movie of momentum and urgency.

’13 Minutes’ is hardly a perfect film, but it’s an effective one boasting more contemporary resonance than initially meets the eye.

About Philip Brown

Related Posts

Doctor Sleep Review: Worth Staying Up For

Motherless brooklyn review: one gumshoe short of a pair..., terminator: dark fate review – the future is stil....

Trick Review: Tale from a Hood

So this feels like a movie about the Fascist ANTIFA?

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

• What's the Tomatometer®?
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening this week
• Top box office
• Coming soon to theaters
• Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

• Fandango at Home
• Netflix streaming
• Prime Video
• Most popular streaming movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Link to Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
• The Fall Guy Link to The Fall Guy
• The Last Stop in Yuma County Link to The Last Stop in Yuma County

New TV Tonight

• Interview With the Vampire: Season 2
• Spacey Unmasked: Season 1
• Outer Range: Season 2
• After the Flood: Season 1
• The Killing Kind: Season 1
• Bridgerton: Season 3
• The Big Cigar: Season 1
• The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Season 11.1
• Harry Wild: Season 3
• RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars: Season 9

Most Popular TV on RT

• Dark Matter: Season 1
• Bodkin: Season 1
• Baby Reindeer: Season 1
• Doctor Who: Season 1
• Fallout: Season 1
• A Man in Full: Season 1
• Blood of Zeus: Season 2
• The Veil: Season 1
• The Sympathizer: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV
• TV & Streaming News

Certified fresh pick

• Interview With the Vampire: Season 2 Link to Interview With the Vampire: Season 2
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

300 Best Movies of All Time

25 Most Popular TV Shows Right Now: What to Watch on Streaming

Asian-American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

The Most Anticipated Movies of 2025

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga First Reviews: Anya Taylor-Joy Fires Up the Screen in a Crowd-Pleasing Spectacle

• Trending on RT
• Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
• The Last Stop in Yuma County
• TV Premiere Dates

Where to Watch

Rent 13 Minutes on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Lindsay Gossling

Thora Birch

Peter Facinelli

Trace Adkins

More Like This

• Entertainment

‘13 Minutes’ review: a riveting drama about one man’s attempt to kill Hitler

This somber German-language drama, based on actual events, is the story of a principled man’s doomed plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Rating: 3.5 stars out of 4.

Share story

Georg Elser (Christian Friedel) is doomed from the very beginning of “13 Minutes.”

Picked up by a random patrol for behaving in a suspicious manner, he’s already in police custody when the homemade time bomb he planted in a Munich beer hall explodes on the evening of Nov. 6, 1939, 13 minutes after Adolf Hitler departs the site after unexpectedly cutting short a speech he was giving there.

With drawings found on his person linking him to the device and the assassination plot the Nazis weren’t even aware of until the blast, Elser’s fate is sealed.

Movie Review ★★★½  

‘13 Minutes,’ with Christian Friedel, Katharina Schüttler, Burghart Klaussner, Johann von Bulow. Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, from a screenplay by Leonie Claire Breinersdorfer and Fred Breinersdorfer 110 minutes. Rated R for disturbing violence and some sexuality. In German, with English subtitles. Opens Aug. 11 at the Varsity.

What follows in director Oliver Hirschbiegel’s gripping, somber German-language drama based on actual events is a detailed re-creation of Elser’s interrogation and grotesque tortures by the Gestapo and, via flashbacks, the gradual evolution of a man of conscience who sees horror developing in his country and takes action to try to stop it.

Most Read Entertainment Stories

• Bob Ross' legacy lives on in new 'The Joy of Painting' series
• Sidewalk video ‘Portal’ linking New York, Dublin by livestream temporarily paused after lewd antics VIEW
• 6 upcoming book releases to devour this summer
• Vietnam War vet discovers he's heir to art stolen by Nazis; now it's an opera
• 'The Strangers: Chapter 1' offers Madelaine Petsch a new experience WATCH

Elser acts alone. That fact drives the agents of his torment, up to and including Hitler himself, mad with rage. How could a seemingly ordinary German working man, unaided, hatch such a plot and construct such a sophisticated bomb? They use every sadistic method at their disposal to break him and force him to confess and implicate others. He defies them and insists on the justness of his act regardless of what is thrown at him.

The flashbacks, artfully threaded through “13 Hours” by Hirschbiegel (who previously directed 2004’s “Downfall” about Hitler’s final days in his Berlin bunker), reveal how a seemingly happy-go-lucky lady’s man experiences a moral awakening as he perceives the society around him growing ever more toxic.

The early scenes are sunny, but the picture’s color palette darkens as the years pass.

As Elser, Friedel is very relatable. The character is certainly no saint, being involved in an affair with a married woman (Katharina Schüttler) at the same time he’s developing his plot. But he’s very careful to keep her in the dark about his activities to shield her from possible retribution if he’s found out.

Freidel illuminates the inner struggle Elser goes through as, buttressed by his conscience and his Catholic faith, he finds within himself a strength of character and brave defiance that defines him as a hero in the truest sense of the word.

13 Minutes Film Review

Weather you can trust.

13 Minutes takes place in a small Oklahoma town called Minninnewah, home to untimely weather events, but also a smorgasbord of extremely in-depth families that have very large individual issues. Former films of the same genre , The Perfect Storm (2000) and Pompeii (2014), place emphasis on the titular characters either bracing for the impact of impending doom, or how a relationship can blossom in the events of tragedy. The doom eventually hitting home makes the preparation of catastrophe or the meaning of the relationships seem very small. 13 Minutes breaks the mould in this regard.

13 Minutes starts up slightly confusingly, jumping from relationships between the ensemble cast of the film, who each perform their job amicably. Before disaster strikes, conflict between the characters of the film hits with very real scenarios.

We meet a family of Tammy (Heche), Rick (Adkins), and Luke (Peltz) who are trying to keep their farm from bankruptcy. Tammy is an OB-GYN sonographer, and she comes from a very Christian household. Her beliefs are forced upon her patients when she attempts to convince them to have babies instead of having an abortion.

Maddy (Vassilieva) comes in, as a teenager recently pregnant by an adulterous Eric who attempts to persuade her from keeping the pregnancy. Her single mom, Jess (Birch) gives her intense insight as a good mother, and not as someone pressing her own agenda. To showcase more social issues, Luke is also coming to grips with his own identity, and he’s afraid to reveal his sexuality to his very religious parents. His fear is well-placed due to the rejection he faces when he reveals himself.

“13 Minutes starts up slightly confusingly, jumping from relationships between the ensemble cast of the film, who each perform their job amicably.”

All these issues together are approached with a very realistic and emotional touch. The actors do well in portraying these very real scenarios also… but 13 Minutes hasn’t gotten to the tragedy yet. There are clever signs that point to the destructive tornado placed throughout, such as the billboard that has your resident Weatherman Brad (Facinelli) claiming ‘Weather you can trust’ and his voice coming from all the town’s radios warning everyone.

His warnings and the billboard are ironic due to his realization later in the film, where his advice to not stay under overpasses tends to literally fail when most of the residents survived. His wife, Kim (Smart) is a disaster control centre leader, and they have a deaf daughter, Peyton (Mansfield), who can’t react soon enough when the disaster strikes. The casting of Mansfield here is natural, as she is hearing impaired off-screen.

The film still has not finished introducing all the characters, nor showcasing all the issues they face during the film. There are issues of financial stability based on a relationship between Ana (Vega) and Carlos (Arias), due to his inability to find a job in his field because of his status as a citizen, and other real issues approached in passing manners, such as sexual harassment in the workplace, or underhanded racism.

“The actors do well in portraying these very real scenarios also… but 13 Minutes hasn’t gotten to the tragedy yet.”

The title is based on the short timeframe the characters must react to the disaster, 13 Minutes . The showcasing of all these issues and the destruction the tornado causes to the town with the disastrous aftermath, makes the movie a little closer to a salad than a streamlined narrative. Each one of these issues is confronted boldly with very real scenarios, and although they’re strained, the tornado quells most of the issues that happen. Luke finds himself; the racist-seeming workplace manager who ends up helping, and Maddy refuses to be gas-lit, which makes seeing these relationships through all the more worth it in the end.

However, the film takes a whole hour to get to the premise, which is the 13 Minutes of time to react to the disaster. Each one of these social conundrums could have their own episode in a series, maybe titled ‘Real Problems During a More Severe Problem’ or something of that nature. The film explores these issues with a flourish, but there is just way too much to get to while shortening the devastation of the tornado and the speedy aftermath segment. This leaves some open ends, or unsatisfying ends for the characters.

13 Minutes is a good film about social issue confrontation, that tackles many–MANY–of the symptoms that plague society today, but seeing as how it is about a disaster AND social issues, both don’t correlate very well in the end. There are scenes of people being selfish which are never truly finished, and fans of disaster films will be left wanting in the end. Fans of true social commentary will also be left wanting more, as the climax of each relationship is sped up due to the salad-like nature of the film . Just throwing things into the film makes it more convoluted and weightier instead of giving the audience a satisfying end.

Final Thoughts

Philip Watson is a Queens, New York local that has had a fascination with gaming since waking up early to play the Marvel vs. Capcom Arcade cabinet at the local laundromat before school. After working many half-careers, he realized his passion was always the excitement before the laundromat, but not for the laundry.

This post may contain affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something, CGMagazine may earn a commission. However, please know this does not impact our reviews or opinions in any way. See our ethics statement.

Related Stories

IF 2024 Review

Mother of the Bride (2024) Review

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Review

Top stories.

• Stellaris: The Machine Age (PC) Review iPad Pro M4 Review Elden Ring Guide: Caelid Dungeon Locations Reviving the Heist: Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling Star in Ocean’s Eleven Remake Men of War II (PC) Review Elden Ring Guide: Limgrave Dungeon Locations Dread Delusion (PC) Review Lorelei and the Laser Eyes (Nintendo Switch) Review Elden Ring Guide: Mountaintops of the Giants Dungeons Locations The Most Popular Female Gamers in the World

• Much Ado About Dying
• That They May Face The Rising Sun
• Challengers
• Ordinary Angels
• Back To Black
• One Night In Millstreet
• Mother's Instinct
• Late Night With The Devil

13 MINUTES (Germany/Club/114mins) Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel. Starring Christian Friedel, Katharina Schüttler, Burghart Klaußner, Johann von Bülow, Felix Eitner, David Zimmerschied, Rüdiger Klink THE PLOT: Georg Elser (Christian Friedel) is a man who could have changed the world; on November 8th 1939, Elser rigged a bomb in Munich which, had it gone off 13 minutes earlier, would almost certainly have killed Adolf Hitler. After the bomb plot is unsuccessful, Elser is caught and tortured to give up the names of those who he was working with. As Elser considers his options, he thinks back on his life, a life full of peace and tranquillity until he day came that he could not ignore the fact that Hitler was leading Germany into war. THE VERDICT: 13 MINUTES is based on the life of Georg Elser, whose attack on Hitler cam just moments too late. The film is a look into the life of a man who seemed to want to spend his time making music and spending time in the company of women, but found himself radicalised in the face of the growing power of the Nazi Party. Christian Friedel carries the film as Georg Elser, and brings a quiet dignity to the character who is described as a person who’d ‘rather be beaten to death than give in’. Friedel allows the character to slowly be radicalised; he rails against the treatment of his friends and colleagues as the small town he inhabits is slowly turned into a Nazi stronghold. Katharina Schüttler plays Elser’s former girlfriend Elsa, and she is magnetic and charming in the role. The rest of the cast is made up of Burghart Klaußner, Johann von Bülow, Felix Eitner, David Zimmerschied and Rüdiger Klink. The story, written for the screen by Léonie-Claire Breinersdorfer and Fred Breinersdorfer follows a man whose idea has informed the plot of many a time travel movie and TV show; let’s kill Hitler. The film romanticises Elser to some degree, and pulls the affair with the married Elsa to the fore, perhaps for the sake of filling the 114 minute running time or perhaps to give us another reason to root for Elser. There are times when the balance between past and present in the film; between torture and freedom is not quite evenly struck, which then means that the pacing of the film suffers. That said, it is interesting to watch the slow radicalisation of a gentle man on screen, and to watch his loyalties change. Director Oliver Hirschbiegel previously brought us the slow burning thriller Downfall, and the much less successful Diana; 13 MINUTES falls somewhere between these two. Less of a slow burn than Downfall, 13 Minutes is about the changes a man goes through in his life, at a dangerous and violent time in our history. The balance between the frivolous times in Elser’s life, and his time in the lands of some of the Nazi Party’s most vicious men is almost evenly struck, but the film feels incredibly drawn out in places and, since we know the motives of Hitler and those around him, while the film is interesting, the ending feels like a foregone conclusion. In all, 13 MINUTES is an interesting tale, and raises the age old question of ‘What If’ one of the plots against Hitler had been successful, although the film almost always sticks to the truth of the matter, and does not try to theorise how our world could be different. Christian Friedel carries the film, although there are times when the pacing suffers due to an imbalance in storytelling between past and present. RATING: 3.5/5 Review by Brogen Hayes

Berlin Film Review: ’13 Minutes’

The story of Hitler’s would-be assassin Georg Elser gets simplified treatment in this latest trivialization of WWII subject matter.

By Jay Weissberg

Jay Weissberg

• ‘The Alleys’ Review: Murky Goings on Among Lowlifes in Amman’s Darkened Streets 3 years ago
• ‘Cop Secret’ Review: A Derivative Action Movie Parody Set in Iceland for a Change 3 years ago
• ‘Secret Name’ Review: An Imposter Shakes Class Hierarchy on the Eve of WWI 3 years ago

Before making yet another film about the Third Reich, it would be wise for filmmakers to ask why. Is it to “never forget,” or is it because there always seems to be funding available for a Nazi pic? Oliver Hirschbiegel ’s cinematic return to the era, “13 Minutes,” resurrects the story of Georg Elser, Hitler’s would-be assassin in 1939, yet as with countless films set in the period, the absence of subtlety combined with predictable dollops of sentimentalism once again trivialize events in the name of making them understandable. Unsurprisingly, international sales have been brisk, and Sony Classics’ early Berlinale pickup indicates confidence in the possibilities for a full-scale U.S. rollout.

Why is it taking so long for people to question whether a constant stream of trite movies on major subjects is really the best way to commemorate a tragedy? The answer, unfortunately, is that simplistic movies make the unfathomable comprehensible, allowing audiences a cheap emotional catharsis (tears in a Holocaust picture) or the soothing sensation of recognizing that a few of one’s fellow countrymen were righteous. “13 Minutes” falls into the latter category, using a love story to humanize the man who nearly killed Hitler. Few would deny that Elser deserves to be better known (Klaus Maria Brandauer’s 1989 “Seven Minutes” didn’t do the trick), yet the banal script, combined with sensationalized touches — the sight of flames reflected in Elser’s goggles is but one egregious example — brings the same tired approach to an historical moment in sore need of genuine, un-manipulated emotions and less-than-easy answers.

No doubt producers were attracted to the combo of Hirschbiegel, still best known for the superior “Downfall,” and scripter Fred Breinersdorfer, whose “Sophie Scholl” also centered around a popular Third Reich subject. And the Elser story has all the makings of a box office success: Nazi Germany plus a little-known sympathetic hero with an eye for the ladies and a conviction that Hitler was taking the Fatherland in a bad direction — making it easy for viewers to muse on a major historical “what if?” while feeling good that at least someone had the courage to act in the necessarily extreme manner.

Popular on Variety

The pic opens with Elser (Christian Friedel, “The White Ribbon”) planting dynamite in the Munich beer hall where Hitler (Udo Schenk) was to speak on Nov. 8, 1939. He sets the time-bomb mechanism and departs for the Swiss border, but his suspicious behavior alarms the guards, and he’s caught with compromising schematics. During interrogation, they receive word that a bomb killed seven people in the place where the Fuehrer was speaking – but Hitler was unscathed, having left the building 13 minutes before detonation. Elser is hauled before the head of the criminal police, Arthur Nebe (Burghart Klaussner), and Gestapo chief Heinrich Mueller (Johann von Buelow).

Cut to the first of recurring flashbacks: It’s 1932, and jaunty clockmaker Elser plays the accordion and flirts with the women. He’s called home to the Swabian town of Koenigsbronn, since his alcoholic father (Martin Maria Abram) is too soused to look after the family, which includes ultra-pious mother Maria (Cornelia Koendgen). “Georgie” captures the attention of Elsa (Katharina Schuettler), though she’s married to abusive drunkard Erich (Ruediger Klink).

From this point on, the director shifts back and forth in time, starting with a dose of torture porn as Elser is savagely beaten before having a hot dowel shoved under his fingernails — here, as in the rest of the film, everything will be spelled out visually. His interrogators demand to know who he’s working for, but Elser was a solitary operative, and despite beatings, he refuses to invent a scenario. However, Hitler, via his SS Obergruppenfuehrer rep (Simon Licht), isn’t buying the lone-wolf scenario, demanding ever harsher punishments until the supposed conspiracy is revealed.

The purpose of all the flashbacks is twofold: to develop the sentimental side of the protag via his love for Elsa, and to depict the growing Nazification of picture-perfect Koenigsbronn. Unfortunately, both are not so much developed as schematized. Erich’s brutishness is one-dimensional (and why does he suddenly drop out of the picture?), while Elsa’s character, as written, is hardly that of a wife who’d put up with so much abuse. As for Elser’s hometown, first shown polarized between communists and National Socialists, its transformation into a swastika-bedecked municipality lacks nuance and fails to demonstrate or identify the reasons for the population’s enthusiastic reception of Nazi ideology.

As a postscript, Hirschbiegel includes a scene of Elser’s execution in Dachau in April 1945, almost one month before V-E Day. Frustratingly, the script fails to even speculate as to why this enemy of the Fuehrer not only wasn’t executed once his interrogation was over, but also was given preferential treatment in the concentration camp. Surely this mystery deserved some notional theorizing, but such ambiguity wouldn’t fit with the filmmakers’ determination to keep it simple and heroic. For good measure, they throw in a Nazi secretary (Lissy Pernthaler) who does Elser a kind deed, thus offering local audiences the comforting idea that a collaborator could also have a heart. What “13 Minutes” fails to understand is that it’s a moral imperative to remember, but it’s an ethical minefield to remember in a simplified manner.

Friedel is a charming performer, and his contribution is one of the film’s greatest assets. Not so the ridiculous hallucination sequence, shot on 8mm, in which Elser is injected with a truth serum. Otherwise, lensing is strong, utilizing the usual change in tonality and texture for scenes set in 1939 and those taking place earlier. Alexander Dittner’s editing is particularly good at the start, when he builds genuine tension as Elser plants the explosives.

Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (noncompeting), Feb. 12, 2015. Running time: 113 MIN. (Original title: Elser")

• Production: (Germany) A Lucky Bird Pictures, SWR, ARD Degeto, BR, WDR, Arte, Delphi Medien, Philipp Filmproduction production. (International sales: Beta Cinema, Oberhaching, Germany.) Produced by Boris Ausserer, Oliver Schuendler, Fred Breinersdorfer. Coproducers, Manfred Hattendorf, Michael Schmidl, Christine Strobl, Claudia Simionescu, Goetz Bolten, Andreas Schreitmueller, Philipp Hoepp.
• Crew: Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel. Screenplay, Fred Breinersdorfer, Leonie-Claire Breinersdorfer. Camera (color, widescreen), Judith Kaufmann; editor, Alexander Dittner; music, David Holmes; production designers, Benedikt Herforth, Thomas Stammer; costume designer, Bettina Marx; sound (Dolby Digital), Steffen Graubaum; sound designer, Andy Kennedy; line producer, Gabi Lins; assistant director, Jochen Gosch; casting, An Dorthe Braker.
• With: Christian Friedel, Katharina Schuettler, Burghart Klaussner, Johann von Buelow, Felix Eitner, David Zimmerschied, Ruediger Klink, Simon Licht, Cornelia Koendgen, Martin Maria Abram, Michael Kranz, Gerti Drassl, Lissy Pernthaler, Valentina Repetto, Anna Unterberger, Anton Algrang, Michael Ehnert, Udo Schenk.

More From Our Brands

Travis kelce was ‘shocked’ ryan murphy gave him role in ‘grotesquerie’, gulfstream is finally delivering the g700 jet, nfl playoff rematches, christmas games highlight 2024 schedule, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, chicago fire says an emotional goodbye to boden in finale promo, verify it's you, please log in.

‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ review: Man, these monkeys still kick ass

Running time: 145 minutes. Rated PG-13 (intense sequences of sci-fi violence/action). In theaters May 10.

Fifty-five years, 10 films and two TV shows later, “Planet of the Apes” is, somehow, still as breathtaking as the first time we met Cornelius and Zira.

The fantastic “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” which comes seven years after the last movie, “War for the Planet of the Apes,” continues this damn dirty science-fiction franchise’s reign as one of the best out there.

Directed with visual splendor by Wes Ball, the meaty film’s combo of flawless zoological effects (unlike this year’s inferior primate picture “ Godzilla x Kong ”), superbly crafted characters and a timeless story of emerging civilization and the fight for survival is remarkably riveting for what sets the groundwork of a whole new trilogy.

This enduring series proves that, when handled properly, you just can’t beat talking monkeys.

And yap, they do. “Kingdom,” thank God, marks the first entry in the reboot-prequel-whatever-this-is series to actually take place on the futuristic earth populated by super-intelligent chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans that we loved from the old Roddy McDowall films.

Teasingly peeling back the banana, Ball’s film shrewdly forges connections to the classic 1968 original in clever ways. The score nods to Jerry Goldsmith’s memorable drum- and horn-heavy music and we reunite with some iconic imagery, both nostalgic and ominous.     

Caesar — Andy Serkis’ brilliant monkey creation who became smart after a lab-leaked virus spread around the globe in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” and then led his species’ violent revolution — is now dead and gone.

No matter. The plot advances “many generations later,” where every monkey chats, and disparate clans occupy an overgrown earth. The memory of alpha humans is a long-forgotten myth, and the few remaining guys and dolls can no longer speak.

Our Curious George is Noa (Owen Teague), the sensitive son of a peaceful tribe’s leader, known for taming eagles and hunting with them.

Scrappy Noa becomes an unwilling hero after his village is sacked by ruthless gorillas, and he goes on a journey to find his captured friends and family.

Journeying on horseback — remember those simians in the saddle? — he finds Raka (Peter Macon), a funny orangutan historian with a soft spot for mankind, and Mae (Freya Allan), a mysterious human woman with sneaky motivations.

At first, you’ll think Mae is awfully well put-together for a nomadic person who lives in the woods and doesn’t use conditioner, but her beautifully manicured eyebrows become less brow-raising later on.

On a familiar beach, Noa encounters a snarling love-to-hate villain in Proximus (Kevin Durand), a self-styled king who’s worshipped by helpless apes he’s kidnapped to do his bidding. Proximus also keeps a sniveling, traitorous human (William H. Macy) around to help crack open a giant cliffside vault.

As much as “Kingdom” borrows from the 1968 film, Ball has also clearly been influenced by what’s come since in the genre. For instance, the interplay of recognizably modern machines and nature, and skirmishes between indigenous peoples and nefarious men, make this into something of an “Ape-atar.”

That’s great. The merging of innovation and iconography is what keeps the film fresh.

I’m no fan of franchises that overstay their welcome — hi, “Jurassic Park”! — but if “Planet of the Apes” can continue to keep up this level of quality, it doesn’t yet deserve the kong.

Rather, gong.

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Berlin 2015 review: 13 Minutes – would-be Hitler assassin who never burns the toast

Downfall director Oliver Hirschbiegel plays it safe after the Diana debacle with a sturdy film about the man who tried to kill the Führer in 1939

W hen your last film was Diana, the only way is up. Sure enough, 13 Minutes is a solid, meat-and-potatoes endeavour from the director Oliver Hirschbiegel. It returns him to the country (Germany) and period (second world war) that gave him his biggest success, Downfall , later extensively and comically re-subtitled on YouTube.

Hitler, the main character of that movie, features only tangentially here. The title refers to the amount of time which elapsed between the Führer leaving the Munich hall where he was delivering a speech in November 1939 and the detonation of the bomb which had been planted there. The failed assassin, Georg Elser (Christian Friedel), is apprehended and tortured. The film then flashes back and forth between his mounting unease at Hitler’s rise in the 1930s and his interrogation at the hands of the Gestapo.

The constant foreshadowing in Diana , in which no one seemed able to open their mouths without delivering a portent of the princess’s death, is largely absent – except for the occasional ironic remark (a girlfriend telling Elser that he can’t commit, or a telegram delivered to him with the words “I hope no one died”). But the storytelling is still suspiciously tidy. There is a metaphor for fascist brutality in a subplot involving the bullying husband of Elser’s lover (Katharina Schüttler). Overthrowing him plays like a test run for the attempt on Hitler’s life.

While there is plenty of drama in Elser’s courageous story, which has been left largely untouched by cinema aside from the 1989 thriller Seven Minutes, the character himself is rather sanctified by the movie. Fred Breinersdorfer’s screenplay never shows him so much as burning the toast or kicking the cat. Whenever there’s a report of another Nazi atrocity, or a newsreel celebrating the Third Reich, you can be sure Hirschbiegel will cut to a close-up of Elser looking stricken, just in case we weren’t sure how he might feel about, say, the bombing of Guernica.

Nevertheless, 13 Minutes succeeds in generating pockets of intensity. Friedel, whose rubberised face and wedge of wavy hair call to mind a young Michael Sheen, is dogged and driven as Elser, but not without a certain playfulness. Violence is released in quick, concentrated bursts that convey cruelty without gratuitousness. The juxtaposition of levity and brutality is especially startling, such as the outburst which follows a jaunty scene of the prisoner posing for snapshots with his captors.

What the picture sorely needs is the panache of Soldier of Orange or Black Book, Paul Verhoeven’s audacious excursions into the second world war. Hirschbiegel could also learn from those pictures the value of moral ambiguity. There is a compelling tale running through 13 Minutes, but Hirschbiegel doesn’t seem in any hurry to locate it.

• Berlin film festival 2015
• First look review
• Berlin film festival
• World cinema
• Period and historical films
• Adolf Hitler

Comments (…)

Most viewed.

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Back to Black

The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time. The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time. The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time.

• Sam Taylor-Johnson
• Matt Greenhalgh
• Marisa Abela
• Eddie Marsan
• Jack O'Connell
• 76 User reviews
• 88 Critic reviews
• 49 Metascore

• Nick Shymansky

• Perfume Paul
• Great Auntie Renee

• Uncle Harold
• Auntie Melody

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

The Big List of Summer Movies

More like this

Did you know

• Trivia Marisa Abela had done most of the singing in this film herself. She trained extensively to mimic Amy Winehouse 's vocals.

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 2 minutes

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• See more gaps
• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Recently viewed