The Netflix Diaries: Banlieue 13

So for me, beyond Daniel Craig's all around badassery, the coolest part of Casino Royale was the elaborate chase at the beginning, with Craig pursuing a fast, jumping bad guy, played by Sébastien Foucan.

This reminded me of a French movie I'd heard about a couple years ago, released here as District B13- it's a film starring David Belle, the founder of "parkour." Parkour is basically the art of running around and climbing things- using an urban environment to move in the quickest, most efficient way possible in an emergency. Foucan is actually Belle's childhood friend, and founded the practice of "freerunning," which is pretty much the same as parkour but more flashy.

Anyway, I assumed that Banlieue 13 would be as fascinating to watch as the chase sequence in Casino, and parts of it were. But mostly it's just another over-stylized piece of fluff from producer/writer/French ADD sufferer Luc Besson.

Belle plays a tough guy vigilante who partners with a tough guy cop (Cyril Raffaelli) to rescue the film's titular crime ridden barrio from a gang lord who's stolen a nuke. Also he's trying to rescue his sister. That's pretty much it. Of course the nuke is on a timer, and the shady looking government dudes who conscript our heroes for the job have predictably shady intentions.

The film's biggest claim to fame is that the action sequences are all done with no nets, wires, or stunt doubles, and considering that fact they're pretty impressive. But the rapid-cut, MTV-on-crack visual style of Besson's team makes it easy to forget that anything we're seeing is real- we may as well be watching a video game.

Add in what's either a very clunky script or a very clunky translation, and it adds up to a pretty underwhelming experience. In the right hands, a unique form of physical stuntwork can really add something to an action movie (like the aforementioned Casino Royale), but in the middle of a shoddy film it's wasted.

There is an interesting subtext to the film: it was released in a Paris less than a year before the riots of the impoverished youth in real-life ghettos. But Banlieue 13's particular vision of urban Paris of the future is surprisingly white-washed, between the two leads, which leads me to think that the filmmakers didn't really have the majority of the Arab and black Paris ghettos in mind.