District B13

District B13 (Banlieue 13) (2004)

Runtime: 84 minutes

Directed by: Pierre Morel

Starring: Cyril Raffaelli, David Belle, Tony D'Amario, Bibi Naceri, Dany Verissimo

From: Several different European countries

This watch came due to Netflix getting rid of this in a few hours. I figured it was finally the time to see a movie I have heard about for many years now. It's... a product of its time, that is for sure. Read my Letterboxd review below:

In a matter of hours this movie will be gone from Netflix Instant so I figured it was finally time to check out a film that I've known about for a long time now. I had a feeling it'd be the case beforehand but now having watched it, this picture is SUCH a movie of its time, along the same lines of the original The Fast & The Furious, XXX, Torque, the Indian film Dhoom, etc. It has a similar look, style, music, editing, and what have you.

I presume most are familiar with how it's set in the far-flung future of 2013 and how it's yet another movie inspired by Escape From New York (it'll likely be inspiring films for many years to come) in that it's a walled area full of the worst criminals, and how two masters of Parkour (but polar opposites aside from their discipline and their wanting to take down the bad guy) have to team up to try and take back a neutron bomb before it goes off.

First things first, this movie is absolutely ridiculous; I mean, I know it wasn't the case but it seems like it was written by a 14 year old boy addicted to Adderall and he wrote this while high on crystal meth for the first time. It's preposterous nonsense which gets sillier as it goes along as they pull out the goofiest crap out of their asses in order to advance the story along, and logic is thrown out the door as you have everything from someone literally eating a woman's panties and toilet tunnels to the typical “indestructible giant” trope and someone (not the giant, mind you) being shot with hundreds of bullets and not having any visible damage done to him. The way that the film's sole major female character gets treated is on the gross side too.

Yet, I can at least give this a 3 star rating. There's some entertaining dialogue but the main thing is THE reason why people would want to see this, which is the Parkour action, along with the martial arts that are used to fight people that are based off of it. It's all greatly exciting to watch, it's unique so it stands out even in 2016 and it's not shot terribly, i.e. shaky cam or quick editing... you can make out what's going on, which seems to be a rare concept when it comes to modern Hollywood movies.

In addition, that one character who dressed like a pimp, had the old Mercedes and had that amazing hairstyle... he was awesome.

Apparently not so awesome is the American remake-Brick Mansions-yet I imagine that I'll see it one of these days. I'll also watch District 13: Ultimatum. This movie is a definite product of its era and even with its negatives I can still say that it's fine and I don't regret finally giving this a viewing.