Banlieue 13
Director: Pierre Morel
Screenwriter: Luc Besson and Bibi Naceri
Starring:
- Cyril Raffaelli as Damien
- David Belle as Leïto
- Bibi Naceri as Taha
- Tony D'Amario as K2 (Pronounced Kuh-Doo)
- Dany Verissimo as Lola
There's a story, not that it really matters in these types of films, but in this case even the story is something of a gem, albeit not as shiny as the fighting. The year is 2010 and Paris has decided to pull an East Germany on the nasty neighborhoods and has sealed off a neighborhood called (wait for it) Banlieue 13 from the rest of the city. Leïto (parkour co-creator David Belle) is something of a noble hoodlum who protects a building in this nasty place from drug lord Taha (Multi-named, multi-talented Narceri) and his comic henchman K2 (Tony D'Amario who, tragically, passed away in June 2005 of a heart attack.) Leïto has stolen drugs from Taha and has to quickly destroy the goods before
The opening scene is pure excitement. For the uninitiated, this provides an excellent first glimpse at parkour. As I said, Belle co-founded the sport* and shows it to excellent result. In parkour, participants perform dazzling urban acrobatics by jumping from rooftop to rooftop, slipping themselves through narrow passages in seconds, and all sorts of daring-do that usually requires trick photography and blue screens. In the scene, Belle combines his parkour magic with some basic martial arts to create one of the most exciting action sequences in years. While it suffers from the malady of hyper-cutting and too many fancy filming tricks, the sequence remains solid. It's obviously Belle doing the work and he does it terrifically. He even lets some other parkour practicioners have some screen time as thugs who chase after him and match many of his death defying stunts.
After this scene things get interesting. To get even with Leïto, Taha sends K2 to kidnap his Leïto's sister, Lola (Dany Verissimo) at the supermarket. Leïto, however, knows Taha so well that he comes to his sister's rescue based on the assumption that Taha would do such a thing. Pretty clever, huh? Leïto and Lola capture Taha and, one car chase later, bring him to the police station but only to have the police let Taha go free with Lola as his new sex slave and they then imprison Leïto who gets his revenge very quickly in a style that is best described as <très révolutionnaire. This is a key clue to the direction of the film.
Six months pass and we meet Damien (Cyril Raffaelli who looks exactly like a college pal of mine) who is an undercover cop. While he doesn't do the parkour thing per se, he does do the ass-kicking-karate-style thing somewhat well. With gun, fist, and feet he lays waste to a room full of goons providing an interesting counterpoint to the less violent Leïto.
Damien eventually gets contracted by the higher ups in the government to diffuse a nuclear bomb that has been detonated to go off in B13 and a plan is concocted to get Damien teamed up with cop hating Leïto. You can figure out the rest from there but there are still major twists and turns which I won't tell you about. Shakespeare or Hitchcock its not but it's just nice to have them in there rather than the same pimped-out story skeleton.
Rafaelli and Belle are competent actors and great stunt fighters. I'd like to see them in an American film someday although they'd most likely not be allowed to talk as neither has the edge the Jean Reno has. At least not yet. Give them some time and they might be ready for English roles.
Tony D'Amario has almost too much screen time as K2 as it's clear that Luc Besson thinks D'Amario is great. This makes it sadder to know that he's no longer with us as he really was funny and even likeable in a role that is usually designed to inspire hatred.
Going back to the story, it's notable that, while we're just now becoming aware of French youth unrest and crime in Parisian suburbs, Besson and crew were well aware of the trouble brewing. While dystopian futures are a movie staple all around the world, Besson has his film set only four years ahead but seems to purposely have skipped the small advances in fashion or technology that will happen. For all intents and purposes, this film is set in today's Paris but only with walls and soldiers. Perhaps the walls we see are the walls that the Parisian youths felt when they rioted last fall.
But, for all its implied messages, the movie is mainly about fighting. Other highlights include some crazy flips and spins by both stars, a really big fat guy, and a final fight that I can't describe without spoiling. The reason and resolution for it are no surprise but its something you'd never see in an American action movie, especially not as the final fight. And while it's not completely groundbreaking it is, like all the rest of the movie, awesome.
This is an action movie where you get sit back, munch on your popcorn, and cheer on the bad guys without worrying too much about the rotting state of cinema. In fact, if you leave your brain on, you might have a little intellectual fun too.
*Belle is often listed as the sole creator of Parkour but others beg to differ. Check around the Internet to learn more about the controversy.
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