Guilty Pleasure No. 130: The 13th Warrior (dir. by John McTiernan)

Posted on September 22, 2026 by Arleigh

“The All-Father wove the skein of your life a long time ago. Go and hide in a hole if you wish, but you won’t live one instant longer. Your fate is fixed. Fear profits a man nothing.” — Herger the Joyous

Few films wear the scars of a difficult production as visibly—and as entertainingly—as John McTiernan’s The 13th Warrior. It is messy, truncated, occasionally incoherent, and visibly caught between two competing creative visions. Yet it also has an atmosphere that many more polished historical adventures lack: wet forests, torchlit halls, thick fog, blackened skies, grim Norse rituals, and a band of warriors who look as though they have spent their entire lives sleeping in armor and drinking themselves toward an early grave. It is not a great film, but it is an undeniably entertaining one—and one of the more fascinating guilty pleasures of the late-1990s blockbuster era.

Loosely adapted from Michael Crichton’s novel Eaters of the Dead, which itself plays with the historical legend of Ahmad ibn Fadlan and folds it into a rough retelling of Beowulf, The 13th Warrior begins with Antonio Banderas as Ahmed ibn Fahdlan. Ahmed is an Arab court poet and diplomat banished from Baghdad after an indiscretion involving a powerful man’s wife. He is sent north as an ambassador, where his refined manners, education, and cultivated worldview put him in immediate contrast with the brutal, loud, heavily armed Norsemen he encounters. The movie gets a surprising amount of mileage out of that culture-clash premise. Ahmed is initially horrified by the Vikings’ hygiene, manners, food, and casual relationship with violence, while the Vikings regard him as an odd, under-equipped foreigner who seems far too elegant to be useful in a fight.

The story kicks into gear when a group of Norse warriors is summoned to aid a distant village terrorized by mysterious attackers known as the Wendol. According to prophecy, thirteen men must go—and the thirteenth cannot be a Northman. Ahmed, despite having no real desire to be involved in this nightmare expedition, becomes the required outsider. From there, the film turns into a lean survival-horror adventure: the warriors travel into an isolated northern settlement where people are being abducted and mutilated by enemies who seem to emerge from the darkness itself. The Wendol wear animal skulls, move through the night like ghosts, and are initially presented less as a human army than as something ancient and supernatural.

That eerie buildup is easily the best thing about The 13th Warrior. McTiernan, the director of Die Hard, Predator, and The Hunt for Red October, knew how to make hostile environments feel dangerous. The village is surrounded by dense woods and oppressive mountains, while the interiors are lit by fire, smoke, and shadows. The film often feels as if it is taking place at the edge of the known world. Even when the plot becomes shaky, the mood holds. There is a genuinely creepy quality to the Wendol’s first attacks, especially when horns sound in the distance and figures descend from the hills in the rain. The movie may never fully sell the mythology behind its villains, but it absolutely sells the fear they inspire.

Banderas is a somewhat unconventional choice for Ahmed, and his casting has always been one of the film’s stranger elements. He brings charisma and physical presence, but the accent situation is obviously all over the place. Still, he makes the character’s gradual transformation satisfying. Ahmed begins as a man who sees himself as superior to these crude northerners, only to discover that their apparent barbarism is paired with courage, loyalty, humor, and a practical intelligence he had underestimated. His evolution into a capable warrior is predictable, but it works because Banderas plays the early discomfort well. The famous moment when Ahmed learns the Norse language simply by listening around the campfire is absurdly accelerated, but it is also one of the movie’s most memorable scenes. It tells the audience, with no subtlety whatsoever, that he has crossed into their world.

The supporting cast gives the film much of its appeal. Vladimir Kulich’s Buliwyf is the quiet center of the group, a noble warrior king whose death is basically foretold from the moment he appears. Kulich has the right imposing, mythic presence for the role, and he makes Buliwyf feel like a living folk hero rather than just another stock Viking chief. Dennis Storhøi, Tony Curran, Richard Bremmer, and the rest of the warriors are not always given much individual development, but they create a convincing sense of companionship. Their banter, drinking, ritualized insults, and battle-ready camaraderie help the group feel like a unit with a history long before Ahmed arrived.

The action is another mixed but memorable part of the experience. McTiernan’s best films are often celebrated for their clarity of geography and movement, but The 13th Warrior is much murkier. Some of that is intentional: fights take place at night, in rain, amid smoke, fire, and chaos. But some of it also feels like a byproduct of an uneven post-production process. The movie is often too dark, too quickly edited, and too vague about what is happening from one beat to the next. Even so, there are flashes of real power. Ahmed forging a sword from a Viking weapon is a solid transformation moment, while the climactic infiltration of the Wendol cave has the pulpy appeal of an old adventure serial filtered through mud, blood, and 1990s studio excess.

The behind-the-scenes drama is arguably just as intriguing as the movie itself. The 13th Warrior became infamous for going significantly over budget and for the creative conflict between McTiernan and the studio. The reported disputes centered on the film’s tone, pacing, and specific scenes, with the studio evidently concerned that McTiernan’s version was too dark, too strange, and too inaccessible for a massive summer release. This was not a minor disagreement over a few trims. It became the kind of production struggle that leaves fingerprints all over the finished film. You can feel the tension between a moody, almost horror-driven historical fantasy and a more conventional action-adventure picture trying to break through the same material.

Michael Crichton, the author of Eaters of the Dead and a major force behind the project, eventually stepped in to oversee reshoots and re-editing. That fact alone makes The 13th Warrior unusually fascinating. It is not every day that the author of the source novel takes such a direct role in reshaping a film after its original director has already completed his work. Crichton reportedly pushed for a more straightforward, audience-friendly version, trimming and restructuring the movie in ways meant to clarify the story and increase its commercial appeal. The result is a film that often feels like two versions grafted together: one a grim, unnerving tale about outsiders confronting an almost prehistoric terror, the other a compressed heroic adventure about a reluctant man discovering his warrior spirit.

That conflict helps explain why the finished movie can feel so abrupt. Characters appear and disappear with little explanation, the Wendol mythology is only partially developed, and the final stretch rushes through material that could have supported a longer, more coherent climax. The film is barely over 100 minutes, yet it sometimes feels as though an entire half-hour of connective tissue vanished somewhere between the shoot and the theatrical cut. This is especially frustrating because there is clearly a richer movie buried inside the existing one. The setting, the central premise, the cultural collision, and the supernatural ambiguity all deserved more room to breathe.

Still, those flaws are part of why The 13th Warrior has endured as a cult favorite. It is easy to imagine a cleaner, more successful version, but it is also difficult to imagine that version being as peculiar or as memorable. The finished film has a strange, bruised personality. It carries the weight of a troubled production, but it also has enough great imagery, strong atmosphere, and old-fashioned adventure momentum to overcome its rough edges. It never reaches the level of McTiernan’s best work, and it is certainly not the definitive cinematic take on Beowulf. But as a cult, guilty-pleasure fantasy adventure, The 13th Warrior delivers more than its reputation might suggest.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

Review: The Hunt for Red October (dir. by John McTiernan)

Posted on November 30, 2025 by Arleigh

“I’m a politician. Which means that I am a cheat and a liar, and when I’m not kissing babies, I’m stealing their lollipops.” — Dr. Jeffrey Pelt, National Security Advisor

The Hunt for Red October glides into the tail end of Cold War cinema like a stealthy sub cutting through midnight swells, packing a smart mix of spy intrigue and nail-biting underwater showdowns that keep you locked in from the opening credits. Directed by John McTiernan, fresh from helming Die Hard, this 1990 adaptation of Tom Clancy’s doorstopper novel smartly distills pages of naval geekery into a taut, propulsive thriller where Soviet skipper Marko Ramius—Sean Connery in full brooding mode—pilots the formidable Red October, a behemoth sub with a hush-mode propulsion system that ghosts past detection like a shadow in fog.

McTiernan shines in wrangling the script from Clancy’s tech-heavy tome, slicing through the babble to propel the story with crisp momentum and unrelenting suspense, turning potential info-dumps into pulse-quickening beats that hook casual viewers and sub nerds alike. The premise grabs fast: Ramius’s bold maneuvers ignite a transatlantic frenzy, with U.S. and Soviet forces locked in a paranoid standoff over what looks like an imminent crisis. That ’80s-era distrust simmers perfectly here, crammed into a runtime that pulses with fresh urgency decades later, amplified by those dim-lit sub corridors in steely teal tones that squeeze the air right out of the room.

Alec Baldwin embodies Jack Ryan as the reluctant brainiac from CIA desks, sweaty and green around the gills yet armed with instincts that cut through official noise like a periscope through chop. Pulled from family downtime—teddy bear in tow—he injects everyday stakes into the global chessboard, proving heroes don’t need camo or cockiness, just smarts and stubbornness. Connery’s Ramius dominates as a haunted vet with a personal chip on his shoulder, steering a tight-knit officer corps including Sam Neill’s devoted second-in-command, their quiet bonds hinting at deeper loyalties amid the red menace.

Standouts fill the roster seamlessly: James Earl Jones lends gravitas as the steady Admiral Greer backing Ryan’s wild cards; Scott Glenn commands the American hunter sub with laconic steel; Jeffrey Jones brings quirky spark to the sonar savant whose audio tricks flip the script on silence. The dialogue crackles with shorthand lingo and understated jabs, forging a crew dynamic that’s as pressurized as the hull plates, pulling you into hushed command post vibes without a whiff of cheesiness.

McTiernan elevates the genre by leaning on wits over blasts—thrilling pursuits deliver without dominating, letting mind games and split-second calls drive the dread, all while streamlining Clancy’s minutiae into seamless propulsion. Gadgetry gleams without overwhelming: the sub’s whisper-quiet tech sparks clever cat-and-mouse in hazard-filled depths, ramping uncertainty to fever pitch. Pacing builds masterfully from war-room skepticism—Ryan battling brass skepticism—to heart-in-throat ocean dashes, every frame taut as a bowstring. Practical models and effects ground the peril in gritty tangibility, no digital gloss, evoking Ice Station Zebra‘s frosty traps but streamlined into a relentless machine that dodges the older film’s drag. It’s a clinic in balancing spectacle and smarts, where tension coils from isolation’s cruel math: one ping too many, and it’s lights out.

On the eyes and ears front, the movie plunges into submersed nightmare fuel—consoles pulsing crimson in battle stations, scopes piercing mist-shrouded waves, silo bays looming like sleeping leviathans. McTiernan tempers his action flair for thinker-thrills; Basil Poledouris’s great orchestral score surges with iconic power through the chases—those brooding horns, choral swells, and rhythmic pulses echoing engine throbs have etched into legend, pounding your chest like incoming cavitation and elevating every dive. Audio wizardry seals the immersion: hull groans, ping echoes, bubble roars craft a metallic tomb where errors echo eternally. Flaws peek through—early scenes drag with setup chatter, foes skew broad-stroked—but the core hunt erases them, surging to a sharp, satisfying close that nods to Ryan’s budding legend without overplaying the hand.

’90s tentpole lovers and thaw-era history fans find a benchmark here, as the film plays the long con of trust amid torpedoes, fusing bombast with nuance that reboots chase in vain. It bottles superpower jitters spot-on—frantic commands clashing with strike debates—yet softens adversaries via Connery’s world-weary depth and Neill’s subtle conviction. Endless rewatches uncover gems: crew hints dropped early, sonar hacks foreshadowing real tech leaps. Baldwin’s grounded Ryan—chopper-barfing, suit-clashing, chaos-navigating—earns triumphs the hard way, contrasting Das Boot‘s bleak grind with upbeat ingenuity that feels won, not waved. Poledouris’s motifs linger post-credits, a symphonic anchor boosting replay pulls.

Endurance stems from mastering sub-horror’s essence: solitude sharpening choices, where flubs invite apocalypse. Ramius embodies defector realism—war-weary idealist mirroring history’s turncoats—while Clancy’s specs (sub classes, velocities) anchor without anchoring down. McTiernan sidesteps flags; zero flag-waving, pure operator craft in dodges and climactic finesse that blends brains with boom. Quirks delight—the premier’s bluster, aides’ cool calculus—padding a 134-minute gem that exhales you surfacing, amped. Expands on score’s role too: “Hymn to Red October” choral rise mirrors Ramius’s quiet rebellion, threading emotional undercurrents through mechanical mayhem, a Poledouris hallmark outlasting the film.

Bottom line, The Hunt for Red October captivates via cerebral kick—shadow games in fluid physics, intellect over muscle, audacious plays punking empire folly. Sparks post-view chin-strokes on allegiances and risks. Connery’s gravelly “One ping only, Vasily” endures as gold; storm-watch it, trade sofa for sonar station—raw thrill spiked with savvy. Sub saga staple? This silent stalker nails every target.

October Positivity: Dialtone (dir by Brian Lohr)

Posted on October 10, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

A short film from 2009, Dialtone tells the story of Greg Pleasant (played by the film’s director, Brian Lohr.)

Greg is an attorney and apparently, a pretty successful one. He has a nice office in a nice building in downtown Seattle and his partners all respect him and trust him with the big clients. The big clients often ask Greg to do things that could be considered unethical and Greg says that he has no problem with it. When the mayor demands to know if Greg’s Christian faith is going to get in the way of being a cutthroat, amoral attorney, Greg tells a joke about about how, when he was in England, he saw a gravestone that said that a man had been “a lawyer and a Christian.” “They buried two people in that grave,” Greg’s tour guide said.

Four days after the death of his wife, workaholic Greg is back in the office and saying that he doesn’t need any time off. He’s back and ready to help the people of Seattle continue to exploit legal loop holes and get out of paying taxes. However, a mysterious man named Peter (Craig Munson) steps into the office and says that Greg needs to come with him, Peter explains that he has a phone that can be used to call people in the past. Greg is skeptical but, after getting an enigmatic phone call, Greg follows Peter to a warehouse. Peter gives Greg a list of everyone who will die in the next two days and tells Greg to call them. Greg isn’t sure what he’s supposed to say. Peter tells him that he’ll have to figure that out on his own.

As I said at the start of this review, Dialtone is a short film. It clocks in at a little over 45 minutes and the end credits run for several minutes so, in reality, Dialtone is the length of a typical sitcom. The short-length adds to the film’s dream-like feel. Since there’s not much time for Greg to have doubts or to argue with Peter, it seems like he manages to go from his office to the warehouse in the blink of an eye. (And perhaps he did….) As Greg calls the people who are going to die and encourages them to get both their material and spiritual affairs in order, he has flashback to the accident that cost his wife her life. The effect is entertainingly surreal. The film’s story is not always easy to follow. I assumed that Greg was having a hallucination for the majority of the film but the ending seemed to suggest that everything happened exactly the way that we saw it happen. The film’s message is clear enough, even if the story is sometimes muddled.

It’s a flawed film. The acting is frequently amateurish, which is definitely a recurring problem when it comes to faith-based films. But the weird imagery and the idea of a telephone that can call two days into the past were properly intriguing. Who would you call if you could call someone two days in the past? I’d probably call my neighbors and ask them to check if I left behind my favorite gold pen when I last visited.

Finally, as a sign of the times, I thought the film was being ironic by having Peter lead Greg to a landline phone. But then I realized that this film was made in 2009, back when it wasn’t quite as unusual for people to still have a landline as it is now. It’s amazing how quickly things change.