It is never not awkward to talk about a film after one of the stars has died. That’s perhaps never any more true than it is in the case of Brick Mansions, one of the last films of Paul Walker. Walker died in November of last year after a career that included a lot of movies like this one: silly, hyper action thrillers that often included, as this one does, moments in which everybody in the theater chortled at their insane, cartoonish brutality.
There is no way to make there be anything elegiac about Brick Mansions, or out of the experience of seeing it. To try to make it a celebration of life or to find in it any lessons whatsoever would be absurd and, in its way, disrespectful to the 50 percent serious (plus or minus one percent) way in which it’s made.
Brick Mansions is a remake of the 2004 French film Banlieue 13, which you can find for rent in the United States as District B13 — a film for which the dialogue is so relatively insignificant that they serve it up dubbed rather than subtitled. District B13 came from screenwriters Luc Besson and Bibi Naceri, who also wrote Brick Mansions. What’s more, the original and this remake share a star: French actor and stunt coordinator David Belle, one of the originators of Parkour, a discipline that sends guys running through the streets, flipping and climbing walls for the benefit of, very often, YouTube.
In this version, Belle plays Lino, the honest man who happens to be the only person left who really cares about Brick Mansions, a Detroit housing project that’s been walled off by the police and left to rot. The place is run by Tremaine (RZA), who you know is the ringleader because at the police station, it says “RING LEADER” next to his picture. Lino takes some of Tremaine’s drugs and destroys them, Tremaine kidnaps Lino’s girlfriend, and Lino teams up with cop Damien — played by Paul Walker — who also wants to bring down Tremaine and save the girl.
Fighting ensues. Running ensues. Jumping ensues. There’s a bomb with a prominent readout. Back flips ensue. Bonking each other with props ensues. And at the end, there’s an intriguing little twist that’s intended to inject a little social commentary.