Also known as Banlieue 13, this film is from Luc Besson's stable. Luc Besson is not the director but the producer. The movie is directed by Pierre Morel. It isn't a recent movie. It comes long before Luc Besson started dishing out trashy action movies in a regular interval of times. Featuring two unknown faces, at least unknown to someone who isn't French or do not know anything about French movies, the movie is watchable one. It has a ridiculous plot but fantastic action sequences.
The movie opens up in the future. The year is 2010. Don't panic. You read it right. The movie was released in 2004. So it is opening in the future. As it is tough to control crime in Banlieue 13(B13) , the authorities have build a wall around it. Leito(David Belle) tries hard to keep his part of the B13 clean, resulting in frequent clashes the local druglord Taha. Thanks to Taha's influence, Leito ends up in prison and Leito's sister Lola(Dany Verissimo) is under Taha's custody. When a nuclear device goes missing, Captain Damien(Cyril Raffaelli) partners up with Leito to retrieve the nuke.
Before you start groaning, hear me out. David Belle is the founder of Parkour. Do I have your attention now? So, the movie has some amazing action sequences without any wires or choppy editing. There are chases over the high rises which is purely a pleasure to watch. Cyril Raffaelli may not match up with David Belle in agility during Parkour scenes. But he makes it up for the martial arts action sequences. When these factors combine together, we are not looking for a great plot. The action sequences are enough.
A must for action junkies.
Language: French
Genre: Action
Rating: ***
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