Thirteenth Floor (1999): A Review

If this is your first time reading one of my articles, I feel that it is my duty to inform you that I tend to look at lists of genre's I enjoy. This movie happened to be on one of those lists. Having never seen it, or heard anything about I was slightly confused by the cover art and felt compelled to see the film.

The film opens with a man back in the early 1900s paying a prostitute by setting money on the nightstand. It then goes to a scene with the same man handing an envelope to at this point in the film an unknown man. The man, whom at this point is still unidentified, returns to his home, changes into his night clothes, and gets in bed with his wife? None of this really makes sense because it is in a virtual world. The man then wakes up from his "world", leaves the facility he was in, and walks to a nearby pub for a drink. The man, who later in the story you learn is Hannon Fuller (Armin Mueller-Stahl), then makes a phone call to a friend named Douglas (Craig Bierko). Hannon is murdered right after this call is made by someone that he seems to know. Doug awakes to an answering machine telling him that he has new messages to be listened to. He then finds drops of blood on his bathroom sink and some bloody laundry in the hamper. As he finds this, a message comes across his machine from a Detective Larry McBain (Dennis Haysbert), yes the Allstate guy, and he heads to the station to see what is going on. Doug has to identify the body of Mr. Fuller and reveals that he was his boss for six years. Detective McBain seems slightly suspicious of Douglas for some reason and asks if he wouldn't mind if he could "tag along". McBain and Doug head to Fuller's officer and find his daughter Jane (Gretchen Mol) there looking around her father's bedroom. McBain then questions the apparent computer geed Jason Whitney (Vincent D'Onofrio) about what he might know about the murder. At this point Whitney explains the ins and outs of the virtual reality system that they had been building.

This film is captivating and keeps you on your toes from the first ten minutes to the last five. All sci-fi freaks out there should definitely give this film a watch. It has twists, turns, and computer theology; everything that the cyberpunk in you could possibly crave. This movie gets a solid 8/10. Watch it if you haven't yet, that's all I have to say.