Brick Mansions, 2014.
Directed by Camille Delamarre.
Starring Paul Walker, David Belle, RZA, Gouchy Boy, and Catalina Denis.
SYNOPSIS:
An undercover Detroit cop navigates a dangerous neighborhood that’s surrounded by a containment wall with the help of an ex-con in order to bring down a crime lord and his plot to devastate the entire city.
Dancing on someone’s grave is never fun nor is it the sport of kings. Paul Walker was an actor whose meteoric rise to stardom was somewhat surprising. He was that good looking, clean cut California dude that was perfectly suited to play the heel in movies like Pleasantville or She’s All That. His ascension to marquee idol was a little less convincing. He always struck me as a low rent Keanu Reeves. Charming enough, good looking enough, but nobody you’d ever think of as a master thespian. He found big screen success with the Fast & Furious movies but struggled to find any success outside of the high octane franchise. A lot of his non Fast & Furious output was the kind of stuff you’d come across in the five dollar DVD bin at Wal Mart. Brick Mansions fits that description aptly and would probably be somewhere near the bottom of the pile.
The film is a Western remake of a superior French movie called District B13. Back in the mid 2000s it was deemed “the bomb, yo” by movie hipsters and featured this exciting new form of accelerated movement called Parkour. This was quite awesome in a time where the internet wasn’t flooded with Parkour videos featuring very brave, very crazy people running, jumping, and crashing their way through urban environments. This was novel decade ago. Now, the whole thing seems ridiculously dated. Even the basic setup which felt novel back in 2004 now feels kind of played out.
Detroit is a city on the verge of collapse. Sadly, that’s not even fiction anymore. The worst neighborhood in Detroit is a walled off housing community lovingly known as Brick Mansions. The worst criminal scum of the city are housed inside. Lino (David Belle) is a vigilante operating in this hellhole trying to get drugs off the street and help put a dent in the criminal enterprises of the local crime kingpin Tremaine (the Wu Tang Clan’s very own RZA) who responds by kidnapping his girlfriend to use as bait.
Damien (Paul Walker) is an undercover cop who has his own vendetta against Tremaine who was responsible for his Father’s death. When the Mayor of Detroit offers him an assignment to take him inside the war zone, he jumps at the opportunity to exact his revenge. The mission involves a stolen atomic bomb which threatens to level Brick Mansions in 14 hours. Damien and Leno form a tenuous partnership as they try to save the city from atomic destruction while punching and kicking their way through the hood.
I’ve been gorging myself on action films lately. Captain America: The Winter Soldier was an amazing big budget action spectacle and The Raid 2 was another inspired martial arts masterpiece. In comparison, Brick Mansions is kind of terrible. Terribly acted, poorly filmed, and even at it’s most well intentioned moments was laughably terrible. The acting is just so bad. Paul Walker is an unconvincing badass and his fight sequences are about as convincing as a third grade performance of 12 Angry Men. David Belle is gifted physically, but his acting is more wooden than the petrified forest. Do I need to waste words on the acting chops of RZA? As an on screen presence, he’s closer to Ol’ Dirty Bastard than Method Man.
The whole movie is an ugly mess. The filmmakers don’t take the whole affair too seriously, but even with an airy light tone the best Brick Mansions can achieve is being harmless garbage. The movie felt like a time capsule to an era of films best left forgotten. Producer Luc Besson has made a career putting together Euro-Centric action franchises like The Transporter, Taken, and Taxi. Most of his projects have a gimmick. Brick Mansions relies heavily on parkour to separate it from other action films. That’s all the ‘style’ it has, which makes it about as relevant as Chris Klein’s Mama Mia audition, Lazy Sunday, and Chocolate Rain. Brick Mansions is an uninspired movie that doesn’t have any reason to exist. It doesn’t do anything to improve on the original and like last year’s tumultuous Oldboy remake is ten years too late.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★
Anghus Houvouras is a North Carolina based writer and filmmaker. His latest work, the novel My Career Suicide Note, is available from Amazon. Follow him on Twitter.
Originally published May 2, 2014. Updated April 12, 2018.
