Entertainment

Hollywood remake’s second-rate

The thriller “13’’ is Gela Babluani’s American remake of his successful 2005 Georgian-language film “13 Tzameti.’’ He should have left well enough alone. While the original was an art-house success, this English-language redo, now getting a one-week run after sitting on the shelf for a year and a half, doesn’t measure up.

The plot’s pretty much the same: A young man, hard up for cash, finds himself and a dozen other scruffy men playing a mass game of Russian roulette while their wealthy, well-dressed handlers place bets on who’ll survive. In no time, bodies start piling up.

The original used actors little-known here, including the director’s brother in the lead. The high-profile cast here — Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Ray Winstone, 50 Cent, Ray Liotta and Ben Gazzara, who looks ancient and speaks with a strange accent — lack the passion of their predecessors.

One of Babluani’s biggest mistakes was to shoot the remake in color instead of black and white, which helped give the original its gritty flavor. Another was to expand the characters’ back stories, which serve only to slow the film’s momentum.