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District B13 AKA 13th District AKA Banlieue 13 AKA B13
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Magnolia Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Sam Scott/Noor Razzak (26th March 2007). |
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The Film
 In the 1980's the post apocalyptic film was extremely popular. There was a massive slew of them including the classic "Mad Max" (1979-1985) series with Mel Gibson and the Kurt Russell vehicle "Escape From New York" (1981), with a sequel following in the mid 1990's among others. There has since been, very few post apocalyptic movies, let alone many good ones. Well, for fans of these types of film, Frenchman Pierre Morel has given us a corker in the shape of "District B13". The film is set in 2013 and the French government has decided that anywhere with an exceptionally high crime rate, will simply have a massive wall put around it with barbed wire at the top. Paris is one of these cities. Straight from the offset we are thrust into some action as we see gangster K2 (Tony D'Amario), working for the most notorious villain of Paris' most crime riddled Barrio 13 district, Taha (Bibi Naceri : who also the co-wrote the film). K2 and his cronies shoot their way into an apartment block and as they walk upstairs we keep cutting to another man, at the top of the apartment, destroying Taha's large shipment of heroin worth one million euros. That man is Leito (David Belle), a man so annoyed at the current state of his district and the corrupt police force, that he takes the law into his own hands. When Taha kidnaps his sister, Lola (Dany Verissimo), things take a nasty turn. Leito, now really annoyed, gets his sister back and takes Taha to the police station with a gun to his head. But, the police are scared, and for the police to live through the ordeal they allow Taha to leave with Lola and they lock Leito up. Cut to six months later. We are thrust into an illegal casino based in a supermarket and a cop (Cyril Raffaelli) who is undercover and does his best to uphold the law. We see him arrest a bad guy he is been working on for months and when he goes into his inspector's office to be congratulated, he is given a devastating task. He must retrieve a bomb that Taha has stolen and is keeping in Barrio 13 and there is only one man who can help him, Laito (using his kidnapped sister to get his co-operation). But is the bomb a plant that is there to destroy Paris and take millions of lives (including those of innocent people)? I'll leave it to you to find out. All I can say, is this film is superb. From the acting, to the action (especially the action), to the half decent (rare in these cases) plot, this is a film that should not be missed.
Video
Presented in the film's original theatrical ratio of 2.35:1 this transfer is presented in 1080p high-definition at 24fps and was created using MPEG-2 compression. The overall image is excellent, with sharpness and fine detail brilliantly displayed throughout the print. I noticed some grain here and there, primarily in the opening credit sequence and occasionally appearing as noise in some dimly lit scenes but this was never a major problem. Colors are well rendered and there doesn't appear to be any bleeding, skin tones are natural with blacks appearing for the most part bold (aside from some noise as mentioned before), overall this is an excellent transfer that presents the film brilliantly.
Audio
Four audio tracks are included on this film, a French DTS-HD 5.1 High-resolution audio as well as an English dub also in DTS-HD 5.1 High-resolution audio. Two other tracks are in French Dolby Digital 5.1 EX and English Dolby Digital 5.1 EX. For the purpose of this review I chose to view the film with its original French track in DTS-HD. My current home theater set up can decode DTS-ES tracks but not HD tracks however the HD tracks are backwards compatible and although I cannot listen to them to full capacity the DTS track still holds up extremely well and is a shining example of a top notch sound mix. The dialogue is crystal clear with no distortion what-so-ever, the overall mix displays excellent range from totally aggressive and powerful to ambient, although the majority of this movie simply pumps with action and music. I'm sure if you have a 5.1 set-up this track will put your speakers through an intense work out that might in fact disturb the neighbors. Optional subtitles are included in English and also in Spanish. The English subtitles are 16x9 friendly and are a nice size on-screen. They are easy to read and feature no grammatical or spelling errors.
Extras
Magnolia Home Entertainment has ported over the same extras from the standard DVD edition, this includes a documentary, an extended scene, some outtakes plus a handful of bonus trailers. Below is a closer look at these supplements. First up is the "Making Of: District B13" documentary which runs for 54 minutes 42 seconds, in this making-of the key cast and crew are interviewed about their involvement in the film as we get a behind-the-scenes look at the filming and rehearsal process for the various and dangerous stunt work. The clip covers just about all aspects of the production from the director getting the gig, to writing and the cast commenting on working with each other and sharing their experiences in filming some of the scenes. Overall this is a fine feature that takes fans through the process that is both interesting and informative and is worth a look. Next up is an extended fight scene : the casino combat which runs for 2 minutes 20 seconds, this clip is basically a longer version of the scene that appears in the film with additional shots of action and violence. Following that is an outtakes reel that runs for 2 minutes 55 seconds that features some line flubs and missed cues, that's about it, there is the occasionally funny moment but otherwise it's just the cast messing up their lines...which gets boring real fast. Rounding out the extras are some bonus trailers for: - "HDnet" promo spot which runs for 31 seconds. - "The World's Fastest Indian" which runs for 2 minutes. - "The Lost City" which runs for 2 minutes 15 seconds.
Overall
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