District B13 (A.K.A. B13 – Banlieue 13) is a French near-future buddy-movie slugfest. By 2010, The French government has essentially abandoned the inner cities, building walls around the slums to keep the violence and crime in. Leïto (sleepy-looking traceur David Belle) is a do-gooder trying to clean up his neighborhood in B13, but when the police not only refuse to help but even make a gift of his sister to B13’s crime lord Taha (Larbi Naceri) Leïto loses it.

Fast forward a few months (no, get your hand off the button, that’s a rhetorical gimmick). The Parisians have had a nuke or something very like it stolen. They send super-cop Damien (martial artist Cyril Raffaelli, who looks like a human version of Vin Diesel) after it with Leïto has less-than-willing guide. They have to wrest the bomb from Taha, then disarm it… or do they?

The movie is primarily a vehicle for Raffaelli and Belle’s moves; Belle is less an actor and more of an athlete, creating the urban acrobatic sport of parkour. Parkour is essentially the art of getting away quickly — emphasis on “art.” It’s hard to describe, so here’s an example (please excuse the Eminem):

This alone makes the video worth the price of a rental. Which is a good thing, because the movie doesn’t have much else to offer. Thankfully the acting is inoffensive and the script by Luc Besson (_La Femme Nikita_) isn’t that bad either. Except for one glaring plot hole — the whole bomb thing just ultimately doesn’t make sense. And although the overuse of skinny shutter (to preturnaturally reduce motion blur) and cheesy electronica gets grating, it’s at least partially redeemed by the gnarly visuals.

A few of the non-athletic performances deserve note in an otherwise predictable film targeted towards niche sports fans. Dany Verissimo is underused as Leïto’s feisty sister Lola. Larbi is one of the better played B-movie bad guys I’ve seen in awhile. The same goes for husky second-in-command K2 (Tony D’Amario), a character who probably deserves his own B-movie despite having his name shaved into his buzz-cut.

B-13 is eighty-two minutes long, so it’s not that big of an investment. If all you want to see is the parkour, you can find most of those scenes on google video. But they’re better on DVD. And the movie is probably better with beer.