“Brick Mansions” is an English-language remake of the French
action thriller District B13, which
came out in the US in 2006 and is the last film completed by Paul Walker before
his death in a November 2013 car crash. It is a good example of what Walker did
best – be the strong stoic central character in a sea of larger-than-life
villains and use his California-surfer good looks to project the image of an
appealing and likable action hero. Plus he gets to be (sorta) funny as one half
of a mismatched buddy duo. His partner, David Bell who co-founded the parkour
movement, demonstrates his gravity-defying skills, leaping over bad guys,
through windows, down stairwells and across alleys. Their banter is
sporadically amusing and sometimes cringe-inducing and credit for that goes to
Luc Besson, who wrote the screenplay. Director Camille Delamarre, longtime
editor on Besson productions, uses the slo-mo camera during fight scenes way
too much and if one car chase is good, two must be better. Too bad they’re so
pedestrian.
Walker stars as Damien Collier, an undercover police
detective in a dystopian, futuristic Detroit. City officials have built giant
walls around crime-infested housing projects known as Brick Mansions, hoping to
keep the crime in a single, self-contained space. Damien must team up with a
longtime resident of the projects, Lino (David Belle), reprising his role from
the original and making his English-language debut), to take down the drug
kingpin who rules the area: Tremaine Alexander (a charismatic RZA). Each man
has a score to settle with Tremaine. The best thing about this movie is Bell
and his parkour. 4/27/14
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