3 gibbles out of 5

This scene takes place either before or after people jump on things.

Director: Pierre Morel

People jump around and on things, and it is not unexciting.

Action movies come in various breeds.  After contributing some notable films to the action world which were notable for stretching our visual and emotional palate for a generally one-beat genre, Luc Besson moved on to a hundred other projects, writing, producing, over-seeing, whatever.  He’s continued to direct select projects, but they haven’t gotten as much attention as the slew of action movies he’s dabbled in.  At some point, parkour caught Besson’s eye and he decided to dedicate an entire movie to it.  This isn’t unlike making an entire film series that’s centered around Jason Statham being Jason Statham while kicking people, but it worked for Transporter, so why not for B13.

So crime is bad in France, and they’ve walled off the worst areas.  David Belle, a founder of parkour – a style of living / training pioneered by his father – plays Leito.  Leito lives in District B13, which is one of those walled off worst areas.  But Leito’s just trying to do some good, keep his building clean from drugs.  This doesn’t make the local drug lords happy, so they keep trying to beat Leito up, which is tough because he can parkour off of walls and buildings and around corners.  Surprisingly, a lot of the thugs appear trained in this practice as well and so can follow in some thrilling chases accompanied by pounding rock music, but lucky for Leito none seem to be quite as skilled as he and sometimes they fall down and go boom (or bones go crack).  Leito makes a run at the wrong guy at the wrong time and ends up in jail.  Meanwhile, ace cop Damien (Cyrill Raffaelli, who… waitaminute, is a friend of David Belle’s…) is ace-cop parkour kicking people when he’s called in by some government folk to retrieve a bomb that was stolen from them.  The bomb will destroy… many things.  And it’s ended up in district B13, so you need to team up with a criminal named Leito and go get that bomb.  Now two people run around together and jump off things!

Yes, it’s a trite explanation.  But the movie isn’t trying for much more than that and it doesn’t need to.  Beson’s skill in picking these projects (and writing and/or producing) is to streamline it down to a fairly solid core.  Some action movies have great scenes that are hampered by an over important sense of plot, or, oppositely, no plot at all.  District B13 doesn’t introduce any new concepts, but it establishes its characters in a certain way and then stays fair to their actions and mentalities throughout.  Besides our leads and cronies there is an unfortunate Beson staple – the super-cutesy over-strong female type.  She serves no real plot point except to be a female, and she recovers from a wacky heroin addiction at record speeds.  But her inclusion can be forgiven because she just pops in and out of the tale when convenient.

And, of course, the stunt work is phenomenal.  I’m not sure why actually seeing the actors perform stunts seems so much more impressive than blocked stuntmen, or well made wire work or computer-assisted sequences, but watching these guys ping pong off and around the sets is a blast.

If you’ve seen any of the Transporter movies, you know the type of environment to expect.  Crime and violence and swearing, but with a buddy-cop smirking atmosphere that makes it a friendly viewing experience.  Add to this the more poetic movements of parkour and you get a fun action experience that ain’t new, per se, but is a welcome addition to the stable of flicks that put a little more effort into getting our attention.