13 Bombs

Spurred by a video ransom note from a militant anti-bank outfit (“send 100 Bitcoins or see the city of Jakarta blown up”), the Indonesian bureau of counter-terrorism picks up Oscar and William, nerdy co-founders of the country’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. The two men are forced into cooperating with the bureau to trace the militants, but they soon find themselves caught up in an intricate cat-and-mouse game with a tech-savvy enemy.

Loosely inspired by the biggest financial fraud in Indonesian history, Angga Dwimas Sasongko’s smart, taut action thriller 13 Bombs revolves around the promises and treacheries of digital currencies. The narrative weaves together three points of view: those of the entrepreneurs, the bureau and the militants themselves, who come across not as dramatic abstractions, but full-fledged characters with rational, even humanist motivations.

The film balances tense passages of cybernetic sleuthing with high-octane action sequences set in streets, factories and high-rise apartments, illustrating the interplay between intelligence and brute force in any security operation. Powered by an affable dynamic between Oscar, William and his girlfriend Agnes, 13 Bombs offers a slick actioner that is entirely of its time.

– Srikanth Srinivasan