District 13: Ultimatum (***1/4)

A sequel to one of the better action movies of the last decade, this one comes with a generic-sounding subtitle, but shows that the ever-fecund mind of its screenwriter/producer Luc Besson ( La Femme Nikita, The Transporter) is still fertile. (Besson also has a hand in the simultaneously opening From Paris with Love.) Certainly District B13, set in a near-future Paris where the city’s most crime-ridden section had been walled off from the rest of town, would be better known were it not in French. The simple-but-serviceable plot provided a sturdy framework for original action sequences involving David Belle, inventor of a discipline called parkour. Parkour involves efficiently adapting one’s movements to the surrounding objects, which in practice means a lot of running and jumping.

There is unfortunately less parkour than in the original. Belle’s character, a kind of thug-turned-hero, plays second fiddle to the cop character played by Cyril Raffaelli in both films. Hand-to-hand combat and martial arts are the specialties of Raffaeli, who often works as a stuntman or stunt coordinator. In an over-the-top but highly entertaining early sequence that turns out to have nothing to do with the rest of the plot, he infiltrates a corrupt club, uses a disguise to lure the bad guys one by one, and uses an original Van Gogh painting as a weapon/shield while keeping it from getting scratched. Again, circumstances require that the cop and the ex-thug team up to save District 13, this time from outright demolition. The district is portrayed as a multicultural jungle so lawless that even the cops fear to tread there, yet in the end cynicism yields to the French values of liberté, egalité, fraternité.

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viewed 1/28/10 at Ritz 5 (PFS screening) and reviewed 1/29/10

Slumdog Millionaire (***1/4)

A potentially cheesy rags-to-riches story becomes an urban folk tale in director Danny Boyle’s foray into the mean streets of Mumbai. Boyle has made films in a variety of genres, nearly all of them morality plays in one fashion or another. Best known are Trainspotting, a tale of heroin addiction, and 28 Days Later, the post-apocalyptic zombie hit. Here, he grafts the punky attitude and gritty urbanism of Trainspotting onto a quasi-fable reminiscent of Boyle’s 2004 Millions. Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, best known for a couple of other urban fables, The Full Monty and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, adapted an Indian novel.

British actor Dev Patel plays the lead role of Jamal, suspected of cheating on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, with all of the other roles filled by Indian actors. The childhood scenes of Jamal, his brother, and their female friend Latika are so natural that they anchor a fairly hoary plot later on. The children, non-professionals, speak Hindi with colored supertitles floating on screen. Jamal loses track of his childhood friend, but not his hope or lack of guile. The plot’s structured as flashbacks tied to the questions asked by a host who seems more like Simon Cowell than Regis Philbin. On the threshold of winning the 20 million rupee top prize, Jamal is interrogated because of the unlikeliness of an ill-educated teenager gathering the required knowledge. (In fact, the explanation is only partly convinving, but I went with it, discovering along the way my own ignorance of Indian culture.)

Almost as much of a character as Jamal is the incredibly diverse city of Mumbai (formerly Bombay). Frequently employing handheld digital cameras, Boyle infuses the film with the sounds and sights of this metropolis of 20 million, though never in a travelogue sort of way. A couple of cruel scenes, one involving a child, earned the film a probably unfair R rating in the US, but the tone is never pitiful, despite the great poverty (and intermittent violence) depicted. It’s a crowd pleaser, mostly in the best sense of the term.

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viewed 11/19/08 [screening at Ritz 5]; reviewed 11/21/08

City of Men (***1/4)

A follow-up of sorts to the acclaimed City of God, a gritty drama set in the slums of Rio, this tells the story of two best friends turning 18. Growing up without a father in a favela called Dead End Hill, one searches for his while the other already has his own toddler of his own to contend with. Unlike most slums, the Hill, adjacent to a popular beach, looks beautiful from afar; only up close do the ramshackle buildings become clear. The place, already featured in a television series created by the directors of City of God, is almost as much a part of the story as the characters. The two friends spent much of the series steering clear of criminals, but here cannot avoid the crossfire as rival gangsters fight to be king of the Hill.

Despite that plot and the similar setting, this has a gentler feel than City of God. Though it realistically depicts the criminality and poverty that affects slums around the world, it’s not nearly as downbeat (or violent) overall. I don’t think people will be blown away by this movie the way many were by City of God, but they’ll leave the theater feeling more hopeful. The overall story arc is a familiar one, yet there was a surprise or two.

IMDB link

viewed 2/26/08; reviewed 2/29/08