Although "13 Minutes" is a period piece, it addresses issues that continue to resonate in society.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 17, 2017

[A] gripping, somber German-language drama based on actual events ...

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 8, 2017

An earnest examination of personal conscience and the frequent necessity of the individual to monkey wrench the state. Or at least to try.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 27, 2017

Friedel conveys an awful lot simply with his eyes as Elser, projecting lusty soulfulness in happier times, sorrow over the Nazis' rise to power, and stunned disbelief at his plot's failure.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 27, 2017

It puts one in the mind to make a meme: Hitler reacts to Oliver Hirschbiegel's prosaic flashback transitions.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 21, 2017

Conspiracy theories surrounded the Elser plot for years, and his political motives have been debated; as scripted here, he acted alone and purely from moral conviction, which Friedel conveys in a passionate, charismatic performance.

| Jul 20, 2017

"13 Minutes" is a superbly acted and strikingly evocative work, with careful attention to period detail and its many emotional beats.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 7, 2017

13 Minutes works like clockwork as an artful (if not terribly ambitious) take on a grotesque era.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 7, 2017

A compelling and passionate performance from Friedel defines 13 Minutes but occasionally the storytelling falters, including an unexplained years-long gap between his conviction and execution.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 6, 2017

A psychological portrait of resistance, made all the more timely - and creepily, almost offensively, unsettling - given the current political climate in the United States.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 6, 2017

So this is fairly interesting history, not as interesting as we'd like it to be, but interesting all the same. But in terms of drama, the Elser story has some problems.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 6, 2017

13 Minutes is proof that a hero isn't about having success against impossible odds; it's about doing the right thing when everyone else on the planet is doing something else.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 6, 2017

The "what if?" aspects of this true-life drama are so tantalizing that the movie's workmanlike execution is doubly dissatisfying.

| Original Score: C+ | Jun 30, 2017

A genuine achievement on an inexhaustible subject.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 30, 2017

While not as powerful as the brilliant Downfall, which chronicled Hitler's final days, 13 Minutes is definitely a story worth telling, and intriguingly timed.

| Jun 29, 2017

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.

| Jun 29, 2017

Tells a fascinating but inevitably grim story, both more interesting and more downbeat than one might anticipate.

| Jun 29, 2017

The answer the film provides seems a bit easier than what the real story must have been. It's presented as a love story, first and foremost.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 28, 2017

Nothing here gets to the central question: Why Elser? In these flashbacks, he witnesses the same horrors that everyone around him does. Why does he do what so many others would not?

| Jun 27, 2017

Review Aside from further vilifying the Nazis, the film's ideological endgame remains a bit too slippery.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 26, 2017