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There’s been a slew of very cool action movies being exported
from France in the past few years and this is another great French
action movie to add to the list.
The
movie is based in the future where the nastier ghettos in France
have been surrounded by walls to segregate the violence and, more
realistically, the lower classes from the nicer, happier and higher
class areas of France. Leïto is a free running good guy that
lives in the middle of District B13 one of the worst ghettos around
and does his best to mess up the operations of the local drug
kingpin Taha for the sake of all the good people that have no
choice but to live in the ghetto. Outside the walls of B13 we
are introduced to the straight laced school of hard knocks cop
that is Damien. He’s a hard working martial arts expert
that serves his country and more appropriately the people that
reside within it, as long as they are law abiding. The movie turns
sour pretty quickly when Leïto is put in jail, his sister
is abducted by Taha as vengeance and the government loses a nuclear
weapon in District B13. Taha holds all the cards and the government
calls in Damien to team up with Leïto and go in to retrieve
the nuclear weapon and prevent a nuclear disaster.
District
13 kicks off in class with two quick and powerful action scenes
introducing our criminal hero Leïto and our cop hero Damien.
This is some of the best paced and choreographed action I have
seen in a while the Leïto chase in the opening of the film
is a chase that should go down as one of the great film chases
of all time. Running right along with the pace and power of the
film Damien’s introductory shoot out and subsequent martial
arts takedown is fantastic, powerful, fast and old school - the
fighting is a joy to behold and exhilarating to boot. The action
takes a bit of a backseat for a while to let the story take hold
and get the characters established a bit more and then it kicks
off again once the two guys get into District B13 and then all
hell breaks loose with frenetic free running balls to the wall
punch ups and plenty of stupid bad guys getting their butts kicked.
District
13 also has an amazing look and sound, the pounding French hip
hop soundtrack sends waves of bass through the audience that compliment
the intensity of the action sound effects perfectly. The cinematography
in combination with the editing is fast but still well thought
out and they rely on very few camera tricks during the action
scenes allowing the free running insanity to really be shown off
for the wonder that it is. It was also nice to see some real fighting
without endless amounts of quick cuts and over done camera moves
to hide inconsistencies in the ability of the actors/stunt crew.
This
movie’s plot line is a crazy mix of Escape from New York,
Yamakazi and Kiss of the Dragon but rarely encroaches on ripping
off any of them. In a similar style to the likes of Nid de Gueppes
(a semi remake of Assault on Precinct 13) this is a great hark
to classic movies and adds a fantastic new spin by amping up the
action with new styles of martial arts and stunt work. This is
a movie to just sit back and enjoy for all its shamelessly exaggerated
action and fast paced set pieces. Breathe in and prepare to be
exhilarated.
-
Dr Octopene
EXTRAS
· '"Making" of featurette
· "Le singe est de retour" - Urban Freeflow documentary
on Stephane Vigroux
· "Parkour Vision" documentary
· Outtakes
· Cyril Raffaelli Extended Casino Fight Scene
· Trailers
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