Movie Review (Dan’s Take): From Paris With Love

Those French. They may look down their collective noses at fat Americans, but they sure do love the way we get s**t done. Luc Besson– cinema’s most prolific Frenchman– has unleashed another action drenched story template (ala Taken, The Transporter) and cozied up with his “Besson School of Filmmaking” graduate Pierre Morel (Taken and the upcoming Dune remake) to offer up the guiltily pleasurable From Paris With Love.

Together, Besson and Morel massage French-American relations like it’s nobody’s business. If there was ever an homage to the American action stereotype, From Paris With Love is it; a story-lite action flick that knows exactly what it wants to be and clocks in with a lean and functionally breezy 95 minutes to deliver the goods. Morel’s crafted a movie that placates its American audience with backslapping proclamations like “We saved your frog leg eating asses in two World Wars!” and gun-loaded, badly behaved, star-spangled ass kicking, but alternately winks at its French viewers with a nod of “stupid cowboys”.

It’s panderingly duplicitous… and it works.

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Trailer Tuesday (Dan’s Pick): District B13: Ultimatum

Totally unrelated to District 9 in any way beyond trashy slums and mean-spirited gang members, District B13 has spawned a sequel: District B13: Ultimatum.

Don’t worry if you didn’t know a movie called District B13 even existed. It’s a Luc Besson (Taken, The Professional, The Transporter) production, which means it’s French and was thus hated by all red-blooded Americans when it came out circa 2004… even if it did have some pretty incredible parkour themed stunt work and saw sweet success in nations that don’t necessarily speak English or enjoy hamburgers. Believe me after you watch this video.

The original District B13 took place in a near-future Paris (2010!), where ghettos have been cordoned off and gangs are the new hotness. Sadly, a bad guy has planted a neutron bomb and plans to set it off. Naturally, it’s up to a cop and a guy from the wrong side of the tracks to stop the bomb from ending all ghetto French kissing and French Toast preparation.

The sequel–does it matter?– kicks off with more trouble in District B13 as the African/Muslim/Crazy White Frenchie gangs have become more powerful and the government is out to lay waste. Time for a cop and a guy from the wrong side of the tracks to solve the problem.

Looking ripe with stunts even more ridiculous than the first, District B13: Ultimatum might be worth a watch when it hits DVD in a few months, because while it’s going to hit US theaters, you could count them on one hand. Maybe two. Still! District B13: Ultimatum is fantastically action-ey, and science has shown time and again that dudes being punched, dropped, flipped and kicked in the head is like a bowl of warm soup for the soul.

Eat up.