Brick Mansions
Director: Camille Delamarre
Writer: Luc Besson
Remake of: Banlieu 13
Cast: Paul Walker, David Belle, RZA, Gouchy Boy, Catalina Denis, Robert Maillet, Bruce Ramsay

Plot:
As crime has been rising in Detroit, it was decided that the best way tohandle it was to built a giant wall around the worst area and seal it off, thus creating a ghetto called Brick Mansions, which is ruled by Tremaine Alexander (RZA) who controls drugs and firearms without much involvement from the police or anybody else. But when a bomb gets stolen, undercover cop Damien Collier (Paul Walker) teams up with convict Lino Dupree (David Belle) – whose (ex?-)girlfriend Lola (Catalina Denis) was kidnapped by Tremaine – to take him down and save the city.

Brick Mansions has some excellent action scenes that live off their parkour aesthetic. Unfortunately it also has one of the stupidest plot that ever existed and even worse dialogues.

[SPOILERS]

Brick Mansions is the kind of film that doesn’t allow for shades of grey at all. In the end it turns out that Tremaine Alexander isn’t the worst guy in the city – it’s the people in power who want and are willing to destroy the entire Brick Mansions quarter and the people in it to get some real estate. Since Alexander isn’t prepared to go that far, in the logic of this film this means that he’s the best next mayor of Detroit because he really cares for the people. Which of course means disregarding the fact that he sold drugs, shot, kidnapped and tortured people and hunted our two protagonists for 80 out of the 90 minutes of the movie. I have seen many bad movies, but that ending takes if not the cake, then at least a huge chunk of it. Since I haven’t seen the original, I don’t know if that particular stupidity was there, too. In any case it made me want to headdesk.

Honestly, though, the protagonists can keep up with the plot in lack of care or thought that went into writing them. One-dimensional and stereotypical is putting it nicely.

But I admit that I didn’t go into the film for the thoughtful plotting, the complex characterization or the layered examination of morals and ethics. I went there for the action and on that count, Brick Mansions mostly delivers. The fight scenes and the flight scenes are pretty awesome and I don’t know why you wouldn’t just do 90 minutes of parkour and just not have a story in the first place.

But if they did that, I would want somebody else to do the camera work, editing and probably also directing. Somebody with a steadier hand and a better sense of movement through space so as to let the parkour speak for itself instead of shaking the viewer’s eyes almost out of their heads.

Summarizing: It is entertaining but only rather mildly.