French Fist

The year is 2010 - just enough in the future that Paris might have walled off a section of its city called "District B13", but not far enough in the future to break a film's budget on expensive futuristic props or effects. "B13" is run by the sinister Taha (the film's co-writer Bibi Naceri, a dead ringer for Tim Roth), a cocaine dealer plagued by an idealistic martial arts do-gooder named Leito (David Belle). When one of Taha's many faceless henchmen describes Leito as "a bar of soap", that's an understatement. Using a French discipline called Parkour, which involves fluidly moving around obstacles, Leito dodges, leaps and repels around B13 like a French Spider-Man without the webbing. When Taha kidnaps Leito's sister Lola (Dany Verissimo, given surprisingly little to do for a female in a Luc Besson script), he teams up with an undercover supercop, Damien (Cyril Raffaelli), to take down Taha once and for all.

And so, all the pieces are in place for a standard martial arts slugfest (there's even an enormous thug to contend with called "Le yeti"). What sets "B13" slightly apart from the rest of its ilk is its charismatic stars and Parkour itself. While there is certainly a fair share of punching and kicking in the film, what's more impressive is the movement. Parkour involves using your surroundings, which makes the stunts in "B13" a little, as the French might say, Jackie Chan-esque. Watch as Leito jumps through the transom above a doorway, or leaps from banister to banister down a stairwell. Watch how Damien turns an illegal casino into his own personal fight club.

Naturally, the film's fight sequences are choreographed to within an inch of their lives, but I appreciated that the stars seemed to be doing their own stunts. And director Pierre Morel succeeds where so many American directors have failed by understanding that his stars are more interesting to watch in wide shots; he doesn't rely on rapid jumpcutting to get his point across. Though there may be very little reality to the fight scenes, I appreciated that the stars were willing to get themselves bloodied unlike some American action stars who are too good to get hit during their fights (Wesley Snipes, I'm looking in your direction).

Producer/co-writer Luc Besson is so adept at churning out B-movie martial arts fests ("Unleashed", "The Transporter", "Kiss of the Dragon") that we almost forget he's capable of great things ("The Fifth Element", "Léon: The Professional", "La Femme Nikita"). "District B13" is firmly grounded in the former category of Besson films. And as such, it's not bad.