• Aug 11
• BANLIEUE 13 (aka District 13) - ULTIMATUM:  Review
• Posted by Deljhp - 11/08/09 at 07:11 PM

Director: Patrick Alessandrin. Review: Dan King.

Banlieue 13 (District 13) was essentially a showcase of the talents of Parkour co-founder David Belle, released at the height of Europe’s obsession with Free-Running. The sport, born of the restrictive inner cities of France, was used in the film in much the same way as martial arts are used in action films; as a physical accompaniment to gunfights and explosions. Along with traditional martial artist and athlete Cyril Raffaelli, Belle scaled and leapt from the high rises of the ghetto dystopia of D-13, a section of France walled off by the government and ruled by gang violence. An uneasy alliance is formed between Belle’s roguish Leito, a D-13 inhabitant who stands against the corruption which rules the district, and Raffaelli’s hardened ex-special forces police officer Damien Tomaso, who is tasked with diffusing a bomb in the possession of the same drug lord who has kidnapped Leito’s sister in retaliation for his hand in destroying 1million Euros in heroin. What you got was an action flick with a twist and it worked.

District 13: Ultimatum (set 3 years after the events of the first film) plays less on the Parkour skills of Monsieur Belle as a USP. The plot is action movie 101, albeit well executed and more substantial than that of the first....Continue reading here. 

B13:Ultimatum trailer