Movie Night
Well, we went to our Movie Night last night. A very good choice from our friends who hosted this time. It was a film we’d never heard of – Banlieue 13. It’s a French film – we watched it in dubbed English, so no subtitles to read (although, sometimes we get so loud while watching a movie, maybe we should have had the subtitles on!).
It was a very cool action film, about District 13B in France in the year 2010 (the film was made in 2004). Things got so “bad” that they had built this wall around the district and basically abandoned the people in there. There were guards to make sure no one got out – and no one wanted in. So it was pretty much a city within a city run by mobsters/drug runners/bad guys.
The hero of our movie, Leito, was born in the District, and waged his own personal battle to keep his building “clean” – no drugs, no property damage – a bit of an oasis in the hellhole of District 13B. In the opening scene, he is dumping about 10 or so packs of cocaine down the tub, while the mobsters are tracking him down and trying to get it back. The coke goes down the drain and the mobsters retaliate by kidnapping his sister. He breaks into the mobsters building, grabs his sister back and takes the boss out at gunpoint to make sure they get out of there safely. They head to the last police station – but they are actually vacating the premises on the government’s orders. But the police are of no help – they are actually going to make things worse for Leito. They throw him in jail and let the mobster walk free – and let him take the sister as a prize!
Then, six (days, weeks, months – we don’t know since no one in our group knows French and it was a title on the screen) later – they are showing this cop – Damien – taking down an illegal gambling parlor. After his heroics (taking out a battalion of bad guys by himself), he is shown to the governor’s (president? police chief? I dunno – it was someone “in charge”) office and given a special task. A “clean bomb” was stolen and is now in District 13B – and if he doesn’t get to it and deactivate it, it will blow up and destroy everything in a huge radius. So he gets set up to “escape” police custody and befriend Leito – playing up the fact that the guy who “killed his family” has a girl (Leito’s sister) doped up and on a leash as a “pet” and his out to get him.
Leito is no dummy – he recognizes the cop for what he is and they work out a deal to save his sister and defuse the bomb. There are crosses and double crosses. (If I tell you much more than that – it may ruin the movie for you!) In the end, they save the day (that’s no shock – it’s a movie, after all!).
But outside of the story line, the really intriguing part of watching the movie was watching Leito and Damien move and fight. The actor portraying Leito is David Belle, the founder of the Parkour “movement”. With this type of action, one moves quickly and efficiently in any environment, using only the abilities of the human body. Both Leito and Damien use this style while fighting and fleeing – and it is mesmerizing to watch. It reminded me of the scene in Casino Royale (the Daniel Craig Bond movie) when they were running on the construction site.
And when the credits rolled, it was interesting to see Luc Besson’s name. I knew I had seen it before and the trusty internet had all the answers (as usual!). Luc was involved in The Fifth Element (one of our favorite sci-fi movies), The Transporter movies (which I haven’t seen, but would like to), and Nikita (French)/Point of No Return (US).
So – a very cool choice by our friends.
Our next movie night host has already picked out her choice. She spilled the beans… all I can say is “I was born a poor black child”.