I can tell it's a good action flick, if I hit the 10 minute mark and I don't care if it has a plot or not. I can tell it's a great one if a plot actually appears.B13- all action junkies should go see this movie. It's what VanDamme and Segal desperately wanted to be back in the day. It's Jet Li without wires and art house rainshowers and bamboo forests, and Jackie Chan without the comedy pratfalls. The action is based on Parkour, which is a French-originated discipline of getting from A to B under your own power, any way you can. You go over, under, or around obstacles using only your hands, feet, agility and speed. Sound easy? Go to YouTube, search, and wince at the people who do it badly. And then go see this movie and see people doing it right.
It's not too long and it's absolutely breathtaking. (And that's just the stars, Cyril Raffaelli (warning: link has sound!) and David Belle. Couldn't resist.)
The pacing is frantically excellent, and the aforementioned plot is actually rooted pretty strongly in the present-day turbulance of the French "ghettos." Just maybe not the stuff about the neutron bomb....
And yes, I said French- there are subtitles, get over it. If I could manage not to giggle everytime they mentioned the bomb had a 24 hour timer on it- you can read a few subtitles.
Go!
