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''Banlieue 13'' (District 13) is a 2004 French action film.
[[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture In the near future]], the worst ghettos (''banlieues'') of Paris are [[UrbanSegregation literally walled off]]. Banlieue 13, one of the worst of them, is run by the ruthless crime lord Taha. After Leito, the hero of the story, steals and destroys a shipment of Taha's drugs, Taha retaliates by kidnapping Leito's sister Lola. Leito rescues her, but is arrested by corrupt cops, who surrender his sister to Taha and his gang. Leito murders the police captain in retaliation, and is imprisoned.
Six months later, an undercover supercop named Damien is given an urgent mission: Taha has stolen a NeutronBomb which has an automatic timer function engaged and set to detonate in less than 24 hours. Now with time running out, Damien is ordered to [[RecruitingTheCriminal befriend Leito]] as a guide into the ghetto, which has degraded to an outright war zone in the police's absence. Though unwilling to trust him, Leito agrees to help Damien find and stop the bomb, but there's far more to this crisis than either of them know.
Features David Belle showcasing LeParkour back before it was very well known in the English-speaking world. Dubbed into English as ''District 13'' or ''District B13''. A sequel, ''Film/Banlieue13Ultimatum'' was released in 2009.
An [[ForeignRemake English-language]] remake of this film, ''Film/BrickMansions'', was released in North America on April 25, 2014, and in its native France two days earlier. It once again stars David Belle, this time sharing protagonist duties with Creator/PaulWalker in his last completed role before his death.
----
!! The first movie provides examples of:
* AnarchoTyranny: The French government has given up on trying to police the ghettos (banlieues) because of the massively surging crime rates, allowing gangs to run them while leaving the citizens living there in the crossfire. Eventually, they conspire to [[spoiler:wipe out everybody living there with a neutron bomb]].
* ApologeticAttacker: Damien excuses himself at knocking [[spoiler:Leito]] off his way to deactivate the bomb.
* ArtisticLicenseMartialArts: Leito makes a big deal about how Damien's technical fighting style is a sign of being an undercover cop and not a street fighter like himself. However, in their climactic fight, Leito of all people scores not one, but two very slick grappling moves (first a Victor roll in response to a kick catch and later a kani basami from the floor), something you don't usually learn in the 'hood. Given that Taha's mooks are shown watching UsefulNotes/UltimateFightingChampionship, those things might be in-universe the last fad in B13, which means Leito was referring to subtler mannerisms instead of fancy martial arts stuff when he blew up Damien's cover.
* BadBoss: Taha kills his mooks on the merest whim and for any failure. [[spoiler:This comes back to bite him when they decide to kill him for his tyrannical lunacy.]]
* BatmanGambit: Minister of Defense Krueger refuses to pay Taha for recovering the bomb, as [[spoiler:he just wants Damien to introduce the code right there where the bomb is, not bringing it back. He probably believes a rascal like Taha will be pragmatic enough to leave the sale aside and just let Damien deactivate the bomb in order to at least save his life.]] However, unfortunately for him, [[spoiler:Taha isn't afraid of the bomb because he is planning to send it back to the city in a missile if the sale goes awry.]]
* BoxedCrook: Leito is first unknowingly recruited by the police and later allies himself with Damien for his own motives.
* BullfightBoss: Yeti
* CarCushion: One of the baddies lands on one in the first major chase scene.
* CastingGag: Cyril Raffelli, who played a corrupt cop in ''Film/KissOfTheDragon'', plays here a good cop between corrupts.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Taha. From frantically shooting a knowingly unloaded gun against a fence of angry thugs to die while pointing at them with his hands like guns immediately after.
* ChainedHeat: A variation. Damien pretends to be a crook to get in with Leito, who works it out straight away and leaves him handcuffed, yet not to Leito, but to a steering wheel.
* CharlesAtlasSuperpower: Yeti's bones are hard enough to break concrete with the fists and to survive to a block clock in the head, not to mention that he can take a Creator/JohnWoo-style flying dropkick in the belly without moving one inch off from his position. The film is quite physically realistic until that point (all the stunts are real and done without wires or CGI), but this oddity is never explained. If anything, the only reason for his super-endurance appears to be simply [[{{Kevlard}} that he is fat]].
* ConcealmentEqualsCover: Brilliantly averted. When facing a squad of armed mooks, Damien flips a table before them and takes cover behind, but he does it just to remove himself from their line of vision and move along as the bullets go through the wood as real life ammunition would.
* CombatParkour: Done by both Damien and Leito.
* CombatPragmatist: The jumping around and martial arts are pretty fancy to look at, but the heroes have no problem grabbing whatever's at hand to use as a weapon.
* DamselInDistress: Lola, though only after the film shows her as a pretty capable gal herself.
* DeathGlare: Leito loves these, and especially notable is the one he throws to [[spoiler:Minister of Defense Kruger]] after learning he has no problems with killing all the B13 inhabitants.
* DestinationDefenestration: More than once from the galleries of the casino Damien clears out at the beginning of the film.
* TheDragon: K2.
* {{Dystopia}}: Banlieue 13 has turned into a crime-infested ghetto where the people live in fear of Taha and his gang, and the government has stopped trying to help and taken its hands off them.
* TheDogBitesBack: [[spoiler:After the umpteenth time Taha kills one of his mooks for failing him, they turn on him even when he can still pay them.]]
* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler:B13 isn't immediately restored to pristine condition, but the final scene shows the beginnings of the rebuilding efforts.]]
* EngineeredPublicConfession: [[spoiler:Leito and Damien concoct one to take minister Kruger down after his failed plan.]]
* EvenEvilHasStandards: K2 never really hurts Lola (apart from manhandling her), and tells the other mooks to leave her alone. He also looks distinctly uncomfortable with how Taha treats her. Later he turns his back and is visibly upset [[spoiler:while the thugs finally gun down Taha.]]
* FacingTheBulletsOneLiner: [[spoiler:Taha, to his own thugs]]:
-->''You are all a bunch of useless dipshits.''
* FatBastard: K2 and Yeti.
* FightingFingerprint: Leito is able to deduce Damien's identity as a cop after seeing him fight, noting that his style looks too formally trained for a supposed street scoundrel.
* FireForgedFriends: Leito and Damien.
* ForcedFriendlyFire: Undercover detective Damien has to get out of a dangerous casino the hard way. So he pulls off an impressive example of the trope, shooting several mooks from multiple angles by locking up a thug's arm in various ways. He also shoots the thug through his leg. He then grabs another mook's arm and forces him to spray bullets around harmlessly before knocking him out.
* ForeignRemake: ''Film/BrickMansions'', again with David Belle as the LeParkour-savvy crook.
* GayParee
* GettingHighOnTheirOwnSupply: Taha is often seen snorting his own cocaine in his private quarters. This makes him even ''more'' unhinged than a violent drug kingpin would already be, to the point where [[BadBoss he'll often murder his subordinates]] before going back to getting off on his own supply. [[spoiler:This also proves his downfall, since it makes him too crazy for his minions to ultimately put up with when he can't pay them anymore.]]
* GiantMook: Yeti.
* GodwinsLaw: Leito invokes this, and with some reason, though all it does is piss Damien off by comparing the government he works for with the Nazis (which is particularly offensive in France).
-->[[spoiler:'''Damien''': ''You don't murder two million people because you can't solve their problems!''\\
'''Leito''': ''They murdered '''six''' million because none of them were blonde with blue eyes!'']]
* GoGoEnslavement: To spite Leito after he almost got Taha arrested, Taha keeps Leito's sister Lola as a chained-up slave and whipping toy in his quarters, forcing her to wear a hooker outfit and feeding her his drugs.
* GovernmentConspiracy: [[spoiler:The theft of the bomb was engineered by the government to wipe out the slums]].
* GroinAttack: Freely used.
* GunFu: Neatly showed by Damien when he guns down several mooks by armlocking another henchman and making him fire his own pistol against them. In the DVD extended edition, he takes another guy down with a flying armbar and repeats the method before shooting him the last from the hold.
* HeroicBSOD: Damien has one when [[spoiler:the timer on the bomb reaches zero but fails to detonate, revealing that Leito's proclamation of GodwinsLaw was correct and the minister did plan on killing everyone in Banlieue 13. The mix of shock for being still alive after what he believed it was inminent death and for realizing that his superiors are really genocide wannabes after all reflects quite on his face.]]
* ImprovisedWeapon: Several, but a detached steering wheel deserves a mention.
* IWantThemAlive: Cause of the opening ChaseScene.
* KarmaHoudini: Leito is apparently let off for killing the corrupt chief in the beginning after helping Damien in B13. Sure, the [[AssholeVictim guy in question]] really had it coming, but that was still a government official he killed.
* KillThePoor: [[spoiler:Turns out that the Minister's plan was to set off the '''neutron bomb''' inside of B13 all along.]]
* KlingonPromotion: An unusually democratic example, when after one too many [[YouHaveFailedMe impromptu executions]] and [[spoiler: the loss of all his operating funds]], the assembled mooks [[spoiler:gun down Taha and immediately recognise [[TheDragon K2]] as their new leader]].
* KnuckleCracking: A neck variation by Yeti.
* LeParkour: David Belle, one of the founders of parkour, plays the hero. He [[TheCastShowOff shows off his skills]].
* MadeOfIron: Damien gets punched around and even powerbombed over a pile of bricks. He looks adequately dazed and worn afterwards, but nothing more. The fact he's still alive after those hits and the ones he receives in the climactic fight against Leito is notable by itself.
* MagicCountdown: The countdown on the bomb is set for 24 hours, but since it's not a series, it is shortened considerably. See also HeroicBSOD.
* MasterOfUnlocking: Damien. Even Leito calls him a master of the stuff.
* NeckSnap: Damien finishes a mook this way.
* NeutronBomb: The unrealistic DepopulationBomb version commonly seen in media.
* OhCrap: Right in Damien's face when his superior refuses negotiating with Taha and nonchalantly hangs up the phone to leave him to his fate. He has the NervesOfSteel to hide it and pretend he is being given confirmation, however.
* OnlyInItForTheMoney: The only reason that Taha's mooks put up with his tyranny is because of the paycheck. [[spoiler:Sure enough, as soon as he loses all his money thanks to the heroes, they immediately turn on him.]]
* PetTheDog: A small one by Damien when he turns down K2's offer to give him Leito and freely leave with the bomb, which would have been the easiest way for him to fulfill his mission. After an odyssey of barking at each other and getting himself almost screwed by Leito several times, Damien has come to care for him enough to protect the street fighter from falling on the thugs's hands if he can avoid it.
* ShipTease: Lola kisses Damien for the kicks at the end of the film.
* ShoePhone: Supercop Damien shows pulls a mobile phone from the sole of his sneaker in a small bit of {{Hammerspace}}. It is less colorful than the classic examples, but enough to amuse Leito.
* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: Instrumental to the film. While both are pretty street-wise, Damien and Leito tilt to opposite sides in the scale: Damien is TheIdealist and Leito is TheCynic. At the end, [[spoiler:Leito]] is right.
* StrappedToARocket: Taha makes sure to tie Leito's sister Lola (whom he had already kept as a catatonic slave for about a year) to the nuclear missile he stole before shooting it at the Paris city centre.
* TeethClenchedTeamwork: Both Leito and Damien clearly distrust each other from the start, but they are smart enough to know that teaming up is the only way to solve the matter. At the end, they have become friends.
* TellMeHowYouFight: Leito deduces Damien is an undercover cop because his martial arts and parkour style looks a bit too polished, as if learned in a dojo and not on the streets.
* ThirteenIsUnlucky: Of all the ghettoes of Paris, B13 is supposedly the worst.
* TotalitarianGangsterism: In the walled-off crime-ridden districts of Paris, the major gangs function as ''de facto'' feudal overlords, as the government has all but given up on trying to police the area. For instance, they're perfectly capable of kidnapping the protagonist's sister from her job as a supermarket clerk with nobody batting an eye.
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Man, the world is really fucked up in... 2010?[[note]]The wall around District 13 was built in 2010, but it's ambiguous how much time has passed since then.[[/note]] But actually, [[TruthInTelevision that's about right]].
* VigilanteMan: Leito is in an one-man war against the mafia.
* WireDilemma: The code for the bomb.
* WithMyHandsTied
* WrestlerInAllOfUs:
** Damien knocks out a mook taking his back by doing rolling snapmare over a table.
** Later Yeti gives Damien a military press drop and a guwrench powerbomb over bricks. Ouch.
** Also, in the DVD extended edition, Damien takes out a mook by doing a shooting star knee drop over his back.
* YouHaveFailedMe: Taha kills his mooks for their failures, repeatedly. [[{{Deconstruction}} Deconstructed]] when as soon as it's revealed that [[spoiler:he's lost most of his money, his mooks turn on him.]]
----
''Banlieue 13'' (District 13) is a 2004 French action film.
[[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture In the near future]], the worst ghettos (''banlieues'') of Paris are [[UrbanSegregation literally walled off]]. Banlieue 13, one of the worst of them, is run by the ruthless crime lord Taha. After Leito, the hero of the story, steals and destroys a shipment of Taha's drugs, Taha retaliates by kidnapping Leito's sister Lola. Leito rescues her, but is arrested by corrupt cops, who surrender his sister to Taha and his gang. Leito murders the police captain in retaliation, and is imprisoned.
Six months later, an undercover supercop named Damien is given an urgent mission: Taha has stolen a NeutronBomb which has an automatic timer function engaged and set to detonate in less than 24 hours. Now with time running out, Damien is ordered to [[RecruitingTheCriminal befriend Leito]] as a guide into the ghetto, which has degraded to an outright war zone in the police's absence. Though unwilling to trust him, Leito agrees to help Damien find and stop the bomb, but there's far more to this crisis than either of them know.
Features David Belle showcasing LeParkour back before it was very well known in the English-speaking world. Dubbed into English as ''District 13'' or ''District B13''. A sequel, ''Film/Banlieue13Ultimatum'' was released in 2009.
An [[ForeignRemake English-language]] remake of this film, ''Film/BrickMansions'', was released in North America on April 25, 2014, and in its native France two days earlier. It once again stars David Belle, this time sharing protagonist duties with Creator/PaulWalker in his last completed role before his death.
----
!! The first movie provides examples of:
* AnarchoTyranny: The French government has given up on trying to police the ghettos (banlieues) because of the massively surging crime rates, allowing gangs to run them while leaving the citizens living there in the crossfire. Eventually, they conspire to [[spoiler:wipe out everybody living there with a neutron bomb]].
* ApologeticAttacker: Damien excuses himself at knocking [[spoiler:Leito]] off his way to deactivate the bomb.
* ArtisticLicenseMartialArts: Leito makes a big deal about how Damien's technical fighting style is a sign of being an undercover cop and not a street fighter like himself. However, in their climactic fight, Leito of all people scores not one, but two very slick grappling moves (first a Victor roll in response to a kick catch and later a kani basami from the floor), something you don't usually learn in the 'hood. Given that Taha's mooks are shown watching UsefulNotes/UltimateFightingChampionship, those things might be in-universe the last fad in B13, which means Leito was referring to subtler mannerisms instead of fancy martial arts stuff when he blew up Damien's cover.
* BadBoss: Taha kills his mooks on the merest whim and for any failure. [[spoiler:This comes back to bite him when they decide to kill him for his tyrannical lunacy.]]
* BatmanGambit: Minister of Defense Krueger refuses to pay Taha for recovering the bomb, as [[spoiler:he just wants Damien to introduce the code right there where the bomb is, not bringing it back. He probably believes a rascal like Taha will be pragmatic enough to leave the sale aside and just let Damien deactivate the bomb in order to at least save his life.]] However, unfortunately for him, [[spoiler:Taha isn't afraid of the bomb because he is planning to send it back to the city in a missile if the sale goes awry.]]
* BoxedCrook: Leito is first unknowingly recruited by the police and later allies himself with Damien for his own motives.
* BullfightBoss: Yeti
* CarCushion: One of the baddies lands on one in the first major chase scene.
* CastingGag: Cyril Raffelli, who played a corrupt cop in ''Film/KissOfTheDragon'', plays here a good cop between corrupts.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Taha. From frantically shooting a knowingly unloaded gun against a fence of angry thugs to die while pointing at them with his hands like guns immediately after.
* ChainedHeat: A variation. Damien pretends to be a crook to get in with Leito, who works it out straight away and leaves him handcuffed, yet not to Leito, but to a steering wheel.
* CharlesAtlasSuperpower: Yeti's bones are hard enough to break concrete with the fists and to survive to a block clock in the head, not to mention that he can take a Creator/JohnWoo-style flying dropkick in the belly without moving one inch off from his position. The film is quite physically realistic until that point (all the stunts are real and done without wires or CGI), but this oddity is never explained. If anything, the only reason for his super-endurance appears to be simply [[{{Kevlard}} that he is fat]].
* ConcealmentEqualsCover: Brilliantly averted. When facing a squad of armed mooks, Damien flips a table before them and takes cover behind, but he does it just to remove himself from their line of vision and move along as the bullets go through the wood as real life ammunition would.
* CombatParkour: Done by both Damien and Leito.
* CombatPragmatist: The jumping around and martial arts are pretty fancy to look at, but the heroes have no problem grabbing whatever's at hand to use as a weapon.
* DamselInDistress: Lola, though only after the film shows her as a pretty capable gal herself.
* DeathGlare: Leito loves these, and especially notable is the one he throws to [[spoiler:Minister of Defense Kruger]] after learning he has no problems with killing all the B13 inhabitants.
* DestinationDefenestration: More than once from the galleries of the casino Damien clears out at the beginning of the film.
* TheDragon: K2.
* {{Dystopia}}: Banlieue 13 has turned into a crime-infested ghetto where the people live in fear of Taha and his gang, and the government has stopped trying to help and taken its hands off them.
* TheDogBitesBack: [[spoiler:After the umpteenth time Taha kills one of his mooks for failing him, they turn on him even when he can still pay them.]]
* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler:B13 isn't immediately restored to pristine condition, but the final scene shows the beginnings of the rebuilding efforts.]]
* EngineeredPublicConfession: [[spoiler:Leito and Damien concoct one to take minister Kruger down after his failed plan.]]
* EvenEvilHasStandards: K2 never really hurts Lola (apart from manhandling her), and tells the other mooks to leave her alone. He also looks distinctly uncomfortable with how Taha treats her. Later he turns his back and is visibly upset [[spoiler:while the thugs finally gun down Taha.]]
* FacingTheBulletsOneLiner: [[spoiler:Taha, to his own thugs]]:
-->''You are all a bunch of useless dipshits.''
* FatBastard: K2 and Yeti.
* FightingFingerprint: Leito is able to deduce Damien's identity as a cop after seeing him fight, noting that his style looks too formally trained for a supposed street scoundrel.
* FireForgedFriends: Leito and Damien.
* ForcedFriendlyFire: Undercover detective Damien has to get out of a dangerous casino the hard way. So he pulls off an impressive example of the trope, shooting several mooks from multiple angles by locking up a thug's arm in various ways. He also shoots the thug through his leg. He then grabs another mook's arm and forces him to spray bullets around harmlessly before knocking him out.
* ForeignRemake: ''Film/BrickMansions'', again with David Belle as the LeParkour-savvy crook.
* GayParee
* GettingHighOnTheirOwnSupply: Taha is often seen snorting his own cocaine in his private quarters. This makes him even ''more'' unhinged than a violent drug kingpin would already be, to the point where [[BadBoss he'll often murder his subordinates]] before going back to getting off on his own supply. [[spoiler:This also proves his downfall, since it makes him too crazy for his minions to ultimately put up with when he can't pay them anymore.]]
* GiantMook: Yeti.
* GodwinsLaw: Leito invokes this, and with some reason, though all it does is piss Damien off by comparing the government he works for with the Nazis (which is particularly offensive in France).
-->[[spoiler:'''Damien''': ''You don't murder two million people because you can't solve their problems!''\\
'''Leito''': ''They murdered '''six''' million because none of them were blonde with blue eyes!'']]
* GoGoEnslavement: To spite Leito after he almost got Taha arrested, Taha keeps Leito's sister Lola as a chained-up slave and whipping toy in his quarters, forcing her to wear a hooker outfit and feeding her his drugs.
* GovernmentConspiracy: [[spoiler:The theft of the bomb was engineered by the government to wipe out the slums]].
* GroinAttack: Freely used.
* GunFu: Neatly showed by Damien when he guns down several mooks by armlocking another henchman and making him fire his own pistol against them. In the DVD extended edition, he takes another guy down with a flying armbar and repeats the method before shooting him the last from the hold.
* HeroicBSOD: Damien has one when [[spoiler:the timer on the bomb reaches zero but fails to detonate, revealing that Leito's proclamation of GodwinsLaw was correct and the minister did plan on killing everyone in Banlieue 13. The mix of shock for being still alive after what he believed it was inminent death and for realizing that his superiors are really genocide wannabes after all reflects quite on his face.]]
* ImprovisedWeapon: Several, but a detached steering wheel deserves a mention.
* IWantThemAlive: Cause of the opening ChaseScene.
* KarmaHoudini: Leito is apparently let off for killing the corrupt chief in the beginning after helping Damien in B13. Sure, the [[AssholeVictim guy in question]] really had it coming, but that was still a government official he killed.
* KillThePoor: [[spoiler:Turns out that the Minister's plan was to set off the '''neutron bomb''' inside of B13 all along.]]
* KlingonPromotion: An unusually democratic example, when after one too many [[YouHaveFailedMe impromptu executions]] and [[spoiler: the loss of all his operating funds]], the assembled mooks [[spoiler:gun down Taha and immediately recognise [[TheDragon K2]] as their new leader]].
* KnuckleCracking: A neck variation by Yeti.
* LeParkour: David Belle, one of the founders of parkour, plays the hero. He [[TheCastShowOff shows off his skills]].
* MadeOfIron: Damien gets punched around and even powerbombed over a pile of bricks. He looks adequately dazed and worn afterwards, but nothing more. The fact he's still alive after those hits and the ones he receives in the climactic fight against Leito is notable by itself.
* MagicCountdown: The countdown on the bomb is set for 24 hours, but since it's not a series, it is shortened considerably. See also HeroicBSOD.
* MasterOfUnlocking: Damien. Even Leito calls him a master of the stuff.
* NeckSnap: Damien finishes a mook this way.
* NeutronBomb: The unrealistic DepopulationBomb version commonly seen in media.
* OhCrap: Right in Damien's face when his superior refuses negotiating with Taha and nonchalantly hangs up the phone to leave him to his fate. He has the NervesOfSteel to hide it and pretend he is being given confirmation, however.
* OnlyInItForTheMoney: The only reason that Taha's mooks put up with his tyranny is because of the paycheck. [[spoiler:Sure enough, as soon as he loses all his money thanks to the heroes, they immediately turn on him.]]
* PetTheDog: A small one by Damien when he turns down K2's offer to give him Leito and freely leave with the bomb, which would have been the easiest way for him to fulfill his mission. After an odyssey of barking at each other and getting himself almost screwed by Leito several times, Damien has come to care for him enough to protect the street fighter from falling on the thugs's hands if he can avoid it.
* ShipTease: Lola kisses Damien for the kicks at the end of the film.
* ShoePhone: Supercop Damien shows pulls a mobile phone from the sole of his sneaker in a small bit of {{Hammerspace}}. It is less colorful than the classic examples, but enough to amuse Leito.
* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: Instrumental to the film. While both are pretty street-wise, Damien and Leito tilt to opposite sides in the scale: Damien is TheIdealist and Leito is TheCynic. At the end, [[spoiler:Leito]] is right.
* StrappedToARocket: Taha makes sure to tie Leito's sister Lola (whom he had already kept as a catatonic slave for about a year) to the nuclear missile he stole before shooting it at the Paris city centre.
* TeethClenchedTeamwork: Both Leito and Damien clearly distrust each other from the start, but they are smart enough to know that teaming up is the only way to solve the matter. At the end, they have become friends.
* TellMeHowYouFight: Leito deduces Damien is an undercover cop because his martial arts and parkour style looks a bit too polished, as if learned in a dojo and not on the streets.
* ThirteenIsUnlucky: Of all the ghettoes of Paris, B13 is supposedly the worst.
* TotalitarianGangsterism: In the walled-off crime-ridden districts of Paris, the major gangs function as ''de facto'' feudal overlords, as the government has all but given up on trying to police the area. For instance, they're perfectly capable of kidnapping the protagonist's sister from her job as a supermarket clerk with nobody batting an eye.
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Man, the world is really fucked up in... 2010?[[note]]The wall around District 13 was built in 2010, but it's ambiguous how much time has passed since then.[[/note]] But actually, [[TruthInTelevision that's about right]].
* VigilanteMan: Leito is in an one-man war against the mafia.
* WireDilemma: The code for the bomb.
* WithMyHandsTied
* WrestlerInAllOfUs:
** Damien knocks out a mook taking his back by doing rolling snapmare over a table.
** Later Yeti gives Damien a military press drop and a guwrench powerbomb over bricks. Ouch.
** Also, in the DVD extended edition, Damien takes out a mook by doing a shooting star knee drop over his back.
* YouHaveFailedMe: Taha kills his mooks for their failures, repeatedly. [[{{Deconstruction}} Deconstructed]] when as soon as it's revealed that [[spoiler:he's lost most of his money, his mooks turn on him.]]
----
to:
''Banlieue 13'' (District 13) is a 2004 French action film.
[[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture In the near future]], the worst ghettos (''banlieues'') of Paris are [[UrbanSegregation literally walled off]]. Banlieue 13, one of the worst of them, is run by the ruthless crime lord Taha. After Leito, the hero of the story, steals and destroys a shipment of Taha's drugs, Taha retaliates by kidnapping Leito's sister Lola. Leito rescues her, but is arrested by corrupt cops, who surrender his sister to Taha and his gang. Leito murders the police captain in retaliation, and is imprisoned.
Six months later, an undercover supercop named Damien is given an urgent mission: Taha has stolen a NeutronBomb which has an automatic timer function engaged and set to detonate in less than 24 hours. Now with time running out, Damien is ordered to [[RecruitingTheCriminal befriend Leito]] as a guide into the ghetto, which has degraded to an outright war zone in the police's absence. Though unwilling to trust him, Leito agrees to help Damien find and stop the bomb, but there's far more to this crisis than either of them know.
Features David Belle showcasing LeParkour back before it was very well known in the English-speaking world. Dubbed into English as ''District 13'' or ''District B13''. A sequel, ''Film/Banlieue13Ultimatum'' was released in 2009.
An [[ForeignRemake English-language]] remake of this film, ''Film/BrickMansions'', was released in North America on April 25, 2014, and in its native France two days earlier. It once again stars David Belle, this time sharing protagonist duties with Creator/PaulWalker in his last completed role before his death.
----
!! The first movie provides examples of:
* AnarchoTyranny: The French government has given up on trying to police the ghettos (banlieues) because of the massively surging crime rates, allowing gangs to run them while leaving the citizens living there in the crossfire. Eventually, they conspire to [[spoiler:wipe out everybody living there with a neutron bomb]].
* ApologeticAttacker: Damien excuses himself at knocking [[spoiler:Leito]] off his way to deactivate the bomb.
* ArtisticLicenseMartialArts: Leito makes a big deal about how Damien's technical fighting style is a sign of being an undercover cop and not a street fighter like himself. However, in their climactic fight, Leito of all people scores not one, but two very slick grappling moves (first a Victor roll in response to a kick catch and later a kani basami from the floor), something you don't usually learn in the 'hood. Given that Taha's mooks are shown watching UsefulNotes/UltimateFightingChampionship, those things might be in-universe the last fad in B13, which means Leito was referring to subtler mannerisms instead of fancy martial arts stuff when he blew up Damien's cover.
* BadBoss: Taha kills his mooks on the merest whim and for any failure. [[spoiler:This comes back to bite him when they decide to kill him for his tyrannical lunacy.]]
* BatmanGambit: Minister of Defense Krueger refuses to pay Taha for recovering the bomb, as [[spoiler:he just wants Damien to introduce the code right there where the bomb is, not bringing it back. He probably believes a rascal like Taha will be pragmatic enough to leave the sale aside and just let Damien deactivate the bomb in order to at least save his life.]] However, unfortunately for him, [[spoiler:Taha isn't afraid of the bomb because he is planning to send it back to the city in a missile if the sale goes awry.]]
* BoxedCrook: Leito is first unknowingly recruited by the police and later allies himself with Damien for his own motives.
* BullfightBoss: Yeti
* CarCushion: One of the baddies lands on one in the first major chase scene.
* CastingGag: Cyril Raffelli, who played a corrupt cop in ''Film/KissOfTheDragon'', plays here a good cop between corrupts.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Taha. From frantically shooting a knowingly unloaded gun against a fence of angry thugs to die while pointing at them with his hands like guns immediately after.
* ChainedHeat: A variation. Damien pretends to be a crook to get in with Leito, who works it out straight away and leaves him handcuffed, yet not to Leito, but to a steering wheel.
* CharlesAtlasSuperpower: Yeti's bones are hard enough to break concrete with the fists and to survive to a block clock in the head, not to mention that he can take a Creator/JohnWoo-style flying dropkick in the belly without moving one inch off from his position. The film is quite physically realistic until that point (all the stunts are real and done without wires or CGI), but this oddity is never explained. If anything, the only reason for his super-endurance appears to be simply [[{{Kevlard}} that he is fat]].
* ConcealmentEqualsCover: Brilliantly averted. When facing a squad of armed mooks, Damien flips a table before them and takes cover behind, but he does it just to remove himself from their line of vision and move along as the bullets go through the wood as real life ammunition would.
* CombatParkour: Done by both Damien and Leito.
* CombatPragmatist: The jumping around and martial arts are pretty fancy to look at, but the heroes have no problem grabbing whatever's at hand to use as a weapon.
* DamselInDistress: Lola, though only after the film shows her as a pretty capable gal herself.
* DeathGlare: Leito loves these, and especially notable is the one he throws to [[spoiler:Minister of Defense Kruger]] after learning he has no problems with killing all the B13 inhabitants.
* DestinationDefenestration: More than once from the galleries of the casino Damien clears out at the beginning of the film.
* TheDragon: K2.
* {{Dystopia}}: Banlieue 13 has turned into a crime-infested ghetto where the people live in fear of Taha and his gang, and the government has stopped trying to help and taken its hands off them.
* TheDogBitesBack: [[spoiler:After the umpteenth time Taha kills one of his mooks for failing him, they turn on him even when he can still pay them.]]
* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler:B13 isn't immediately restored to pristine condition, but the final scene shows the beginnings of the rebuilding efforts.]]
* EngineeredPublicConfession: [[spoiler:Leito and Damien concoct one to take minister Kruger down after his failed plan.]]
* EvenEvilHasStandards: K2 never really hurts Lola (apart from manhandling her), and tells the other mooks to leave her alone. He also looks distinctly uncomfortable with how Taha treats her. Later he turns his back and is visibly upset [[spoiler:while the thugs finally gun down Taha.]]
* FacingTheBulletsOneLiner: [[spoiler:Taha, to his own thugs]]:
-->''You are all a bunch of useless dipshits.''
* FatBastard: K2 and Yeti.
* FightingFingerprint: Leito is able to deduce Damien's identity as a cop after seeing him fight, noting that his style looks too formally trained for a supposed street scoundrel.
* FireForgedFriends: Leito and Damien.
* ForcedFriendlyFire: Undercover detective Damien has to get out of a dangerous casino the hard way. So he pulls off an impressive example of the trope, shooting several mooks from multiple angles by locking up a thug's arm in various ways. He also shoots the thug through his leg. He then grabs another mook's arm and forces him to spray bullets around harmlessly before knocking him out.
* ForeignRemake: ''Film/BrickMansions'', again with David Belle as the LeParkour-savvy crook.
* GayParee
* GettingHighOnTheirOwnSupply: Taha is often seen snorting his own cocaine in his private quarters. This makes him even ''more'' unhinged than a violent drug kingpin would already be, to the point where [[BadBoss he'll often murder his subordinates]] before going back to getting off on his own supply. [[spoiler:This also proves his downfall, since it makes him too crazy for his minions to ultimately put up with when he can't pay them anymore.]]
* GiantMook: Yeti.
* GodwinsLaw: Leito invokes this, and with some reason, though all it does is piss Damien off by comparing the government he works for with the Nazis (which is particularly offensive in France).
-->[[spoiler:'''Damien''': ''You don't murder two million people because you can't solve their problems!''\\
'''Leito''': ''They murdered '''six''' million because none of them were blonde with blue eyes!'']]
* GoGoEnslavement: To spite Leito after he almost got Taha arrested, Taha keeps Leito's sister Lola as a chained-up slave and whipping toy in his quarters, forcing her to wear a hooker outfit and feeding her his drugs.
* GovernmentConspiracy: [[spoiler:The theft of the bomb was engineered by the government to wipe out the slums]].
* GroinAttack: Freely used.
* GunFu: Neatly showed by Damien when he guns down several mooks by armlocking another henchman and making him fire his own pistol against them. In the DVD extended edition, he takes another guy down with a flying armbar and repeats the method before shooting him the last from the hold.
* HeroicBSOD: Damien has one when [[spoiler:the timer on the bomb reaches zero but fails to detonate, revealing that Leito's proclamation of GodwinsLaw was correct and the minister did plan on killing everyone in Banlieue 13. The mix of shock for being still alive after what he believed it was inminent death and for realizing that his superiors are really genocide wannabes after all reflects quite on his face.]]
* ImprovisedWeapon: Several, but a detached steering wheel deserves a mention.
* IWantThemAlive: Cause of the opening ChaseScene.
* KarmaHoudini: Leito is apparently let off for killing the corrupt chief in the beginning after helping Damien in B13. Sure, the [[AssholeVictim guy in question]] really had it coming, but that was still a government official he killed.
* KillThePoor: [[spoiler:Turns out that the Minister's plan was to set off the '''neutron bomb''' inside of B13 all along.]]
* KlingonPromotion: An unusually democratic example, when after one too many [[YouHaveFailedMe impromptu executions]] and [[spoiler: the loss of all his operating funds]], the assembled mooks [[spoiler:gun down Taha and immediately recognise [[TheDragon K2]] as their new leader]].
* KnuckleCracking: A neck variation by Yeti.
* LeParkour: David Belle, one of the founders of parkour, plays the hero. He [[TheCastShowOff shows off his skills]].
* MadeOfIron: Damien gets punched around and even powerbombed over a pile of bricks. He looks adequately dazed and worn afterwards, but nothing more. The fact he's still alive after those hits and the ones he receives in the climactic fight against Leito is notable by itself.
* MagicCountdown: The countdown on the bomb is set for 24 hours, but since it's not a series, it is shortened considerably. See also HeroicBSOD.
* MasterOfUnlocking: Damien. Even Leito calls him a master of the stuff.
* NeckSnap: Damien finishes a mook this way.
* NeutronBomb: The unrealistic DepopulationBomb version commonly seen in media.
* OhCrap: Right in Damien's face when his superior refuses negotiating with Taha and nonchalantly hangs up the phone to leave him to his fate. He has the NervesOfSteel to hide it and pretend he is being given confirmation, however.
* OnlyInItForTheMoney: The only reason that Taha's mooks put up with his tyranny is because of the paycheck. [[spoiler:Sure enough, as soon as he loses all his money thanks to the heroes, they immediately turn on him.]]
* PetTheDog: A small one by Damien when he turns down K2's offer to give him Leito and freely leave with the bomb, which would have been the easiest way for him to fulfill his mission. After an odyssey of barking at each other and getting himself almost screwed by Leito several times, Damien has come to care for him enough to protect the street fighter from falling on the thugs's hands if he can avoid it.
* ShipTease: Lola kisses Damien for the kicks at the end of the film.
* ShoePhone: Supercop Damien shows pulls a mobile phone from the sole of his sneaker in a small bit of {{Hammerspace}}. It is less colorful than the classic examples, but enough to amuse Leito.
* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: Instrumental to the film. While both are pretty street-wise, Damien and Leito tilt to opposite sides in the scale: Damien is TheIdealist and Leito is TheCynic. At the end, [[spoiler:Leito]] is right.
* StrappedToARocket: Taha makes sure to tie Leito's sister Lola (whom he had already kept as a catatonic slave for about a year) to the nuclear missile he stole before shooting it at the Paris city centre.
* TeethClenchedTeamwork: Both Leito and Damien clearly distrust each other from the start, but they are smart enough to know that teaming up is the only way to solve the matter. At the end, they have become friends.
* TellMeHowYouFight: Leito deduces Damien is an undercover cop because his martial arts and parkour style looks a bit too polished, as if learned in a dojo and not on the streets.
* ThirteenIsUnlucky: Of all the ghettoes of Paris, B13 is supposedly the worst.
* TotalitarianGangsterism: In the walled-off crime-ridden districts of Paris, the major gangs function as ''de facto'' feudal overlords, as the government has all but given up on trying to police the area. For instance, they're perfectly capable of kidnapping the protagonist's sister from her job as a supermarket clerk with nobody batting an eye.
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Man, the world is really fucked up in... 2010?[[note]]The wall around District 13 was built in 2010, but it's ambiguous how much time has passed since then.[[/note]] But actually, [[TruthInTelevision that's about right]].
* VigilanteMan: Leito is in an one-man war against the mafia.
* WireDilemma: The code for the bomb.
* WithMyHandsTied
* WrestlerInAllOfUs:
** Damien knocks out a mook taking his back by doing rolling snapmare over a table.
** Later Yeti gives Damien a military press drop and a guwrench powerbomb over bricks. Ouch.
** Also, in the DVD extended edition, Damien takes out a mook by doing a shooting star knee drop over his back.
* YouHaveFailedMe: Taha kills his mooks for their failures, repeatedly. [[{{Deconstruction}} Deconstructed]] when as soon as it's revealed that [[spoiler:he's lost most of his money, his mooks turn on him.]]
----
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* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Man, the world is really fucked up in... 2010? But actually, [[TruthInTelevision that's about right]].
to:
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Man, the world is really fucked up in... 2010? 2010?[[note]]The wall around District 13 was built in 2010, but it's ambiguous how much time has passed since then.[[/note]] But actually, [[TruthInTelevision that's about right]].
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* AnarchoTyranny: The French government has given up on trying to police the ghettos (banlieues) because of the massively surging crime rates, allowing gangs to run them while leaving the citizens living there in the crossfire. Eventually, they conspire to [[spoiler:wipe out everybody living there with a neutron bomb]].
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[[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture In the near future]], the worst ghettos (''banlieues'') of Paris are literally walled off. Banlieue 13, one of the worst of them, is run by the ruthless crime lord Taha. After Leito, the hero of the story, steals and destroys a shipment of Taha's drugs, Taha retaliates by kidnapping Leito's sister Lola. Leito rescues her, but is arrested by corrupt cops, who surrender his sister to Taha and his gang. Leito murders the police captain in retaliation, and is imprisoned.
to:
[[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture In the near future]], the worst ghettos (''banlieues'') of Paris are [[UrbanSegregation literally walled off.off]]. Banlieue 13, one of the worst of them, is run by the ruthless crime lord Taha. After Leito, the hero of the story, steals and destroys a shipment of Taha's drugs, Taha retaliates by kidnapping Leito's sister Lola. Leito rescues her, but is arrested by corrupt cops, who surrender his sister to Taha and his gang. Leito murders the police captain in retaliation, and is imprisoned.
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* KarmaHoudini: Leito is apparently let off for killing the corrupt chief in the beginning after helping Damien in B13. Sure, the [[AssholeVictim guy in question]] really had it coming, but that was still an government official he killed.
to:
* KarmaHoudini: Leito is apparently let off for killing the corrupt chief in the beginning after helping Damien in B13. Sure, the [[AssholeVictim guy in question]] really had it coming, but that was still an a government official he killed.
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Added DiffLines:
* TotalitarianGangsterism: In the walled-off crime-ridden districts of Paris, the major gangs function as ''de facto'' feudal overlords, as the government has all but given up on trying to police the area. For instance, they're perfectly capable of kidnapping the protagonist's sister from her job as a supermarket clerk with nobody batting an eye.
