My Favourite Movies: District 13

We tried to see District 13 – not to be confused with the recent superb movie District 9 – at the cinema when it came out in 2004. It was not to be. Only on screen for a single week we failed to get our collective acts together to organise the trip. Some months later, however, I managed to pick it up cheaply on DVD so made the impulsive purchase.

District 13 is an odd film for several reasons, firstly it’s supposed to be (at least on speaking terms with) Sci-Fi without a single SF element. In many ways it’s broadly similar to Escape from New York in that a district – you guessed it, Number 13 – is walled off from the rest of the city (Paris in this case) and left to its own devices. The plot, such as it is, is paper thin. Leito (played by David Belle – pictured above on the left) is the good guy living in bad circumstances. He’s annoyed the local drug lord by flushing or ruining a million Euro’s worth of heroine. When Leito’s sister is captured as a bargaining chip he rescues her and for good measure takes the drug lord to the local police station. Unfortunately they’re just packing up to go – echoes of Assault on Precinct 13 here – so let the drug lord go and give him Leito’s sister into the bargain. Understandably annoyed by this Leito kills the police officer in charge and ends up serving a life sentence. Enter Captain Damien Tamaso (played by Cyril Raffaelli) from the elite Paris anti-drug squad. After breaking up an inner city drug den single handed he is given a mission to enter District 13 and recover a stolen Neutron type bomb. Needing inside information he teams up with Leito to infiltrate the criminal gang and return the weapon before it detonate in less that 24 hours.

What makes this film one of my favourites – joined now by its sharper sequel District 13 Ultimatum (which is basically the same film with a bigger budget) – are three things. Firstly I do enjoy the quirky Gallic sense of humour: D-13 is actually quite a funny film. Second the fight scenes are outstanding if heavily choreographed and obviously staged to show off the characters very athletic abilities. But what sells the whole thing to me are the chase sequences where Free Running gets, well, free reign. Some of the stunts are literally jaw droppingly good – and there are people out there who do that sort of thing for fun! It’s truly amazing how they run, jump and literally bounce off walls. Oh, I almost forgot another thing I loved about this film (and even more about the sequel) – the soundtrack! It’s an amazing mix of urban gangster rap – in French of course – with an Arabic riff that’s something else again. Hopefully at some point I’ll pick both of them up (neither is available on Amazon). So if you want to see something off the mainstream which is pretty much non-stop action this is definitely the movie for you – but, as with all such things – it must be watching in its original language and definitely not dubbed.