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''Brick Mansions'' is a 2014
action film Action film is a film genre in which the protagonist is thrust into a series of events that typically involve violence and physical feats. The genre tends to feature a mostly resourceful hero struggling against incredible odds, which include life ...
starring
Paul Walker Paul William Walker IV (September 12, 1973 – November 30, 2013) was an American actor. He was known for his role as Brian O'Conner in the ''Fast & Furious'' franchise. Walker began his career as a child actor in the 1980s, gaining recogniti ...
,
David Belle David Nicholas Williams Belle (born 29 April 1973) is a French actor, film choreographer and stunt coordinator. He is deemed the founder and leading pioneer of the physical discipline parkour, coining it based on his training and the teachings fr ...
, RZA, also starring Goûchy Boy, Catalina Denis and
Carlo Rota Carlo Dante Rota (born 17 April 1961) is a British-born Canadian actor. He has appeared in ''Little Mosque on the Prairie'' and as systems analyst Morris O'Brian on the Fox series '' 24''. He also co-starred as Emilio Solano in ''Jane the Virg ...
. The film was directed by
Camille Delamarre Camille Delamarre is a French film editor and director, best known for directing '' The Transporter Refueled'' and ''Brick Mansions''. He edited films including '' Transporter 3'' and '' Taken 2'', among others. Career In 2014, Delamarre made ...
and written by
Luc Besson Luc Paul Maurice Besson (; born 18 March 1959) is a French film director, screenwriter and producer. He directed or produced the films '' Subway'' (1985), ''The Big Blue'' (1988), and '' La Femme Nikita'' (1990). Besson is associated with the ' ...
,
Robert Mark Kamen Robert Mark Kamen (born October 9, 1947) is an American screenwriter, best known as creator of '' The Karate Kid franchise'', as well as for his later collaborations with French filmmaker Luc Besson, which includes the screenplay for ''The Fifth ...
and Bibi Naceri. It is a
remake A remake is a film, television series, video game, song or similar form of entertainment that is based upon and retells the story of an earlier production in the same medium—e.g., a "new version of an existing film". A remake tells the same ...
of the 2004 French film ''
District 13 ''District 13'' ( French title ''Banlieue 13'' or ''B13''), is a 2004 French action film directed by Pierre Morel and written and produced by Luc Besson. It depicts parkour in several stunt sequences completed without wires or computer-generated ...
'', in which Belle had also starred. ''Brick Mansions'' was released on April 25, 2014, five months after Walker's death on November 30, 2013 and has a dedication to him at the start of the credits. This was Walker's penultimate film, followed by his final film appearance in ''
Furious 7 ''Furious 7'' (also known as ''Fast & Furious 7'') is a 2015 American action film directed by James Wan and written by Chris Morgan. It is the sequel to ''Fast & Furious 6'' (2013) and '' The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift'' (2006), and ser ...
''.


Plot

In 2018, in a crime-ridden
dystopia A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...
n
Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...
, a particularly notorious neighborhood has grown so dangerous that law enforcement is overwhelmed. Unable to control the crime, city officials build a colossal, -tall containment wall around this area, known as Brick Mansions, "the projects", or the " no-go zone", to cut it off from the rest of the city. Police monitor all movement in and out of Brick Mansions, and schools and hospitals within it have been shut down. For undercover cop Damien Collier (
Paul Walker Paul William Walker IV (September 12, 1973 – November 30, 2013) was an American actor. He was known for his role as Brian O'Conner in the ''Fast & Furious'' franchise. Walker began his career as a child actor in the 1980s, gaining recogniti ...
), every day is a battle against corruption after the death of his father. For French-Caribbean ex-convict Lino Duppre (
David Belle David Nicholas Williams Belle (born 29 April 1973) is a French actor, film choreographer and stunt coordinator. He is deemed the founder and leading pioneer of the physical discipline parkour, coining it based on his training and the teachings fr ...
), every day is a fight to live an honest life. Lino is hunted by drug kingpin Tremaine Alexander for stealing a massive amount of heroin and emptying it down a bathtub. Lino evades capture and so Tremaine has his men capture Lino's girlfriend, Lola. Lino attempts to free her and together they manage to escape and capture Tremaine in the Projects, turning him in to police at the border wall. However, Lino is shocked when the police free Tremaine and arrest him instead; it turns out that the police have long been in Tremaine's pay. While arrested, Lino kills a police officer in a failed attempt to escape. In the meantime, city officials have discovered that Tremaine has gained hold of a nuclear explosive and a small missile, which he plans to launch into downtown Detroit unless he obtains a ransom. Damien is sent undercover as a prisoner in order to free Lino so that the two can destroy the bomb together. Together, the two manage to escape from a police van. In the beginning they fight each other, both verbally and physically, but they eventually decide to work together - though not before Lino deduces that Damien is actually an undercover cop. Together the two face off against Tremaine and his gang in order to free Lola and defuse the bomb. As they are set to defuse the missile, Damien discovers that Tremaine was bluffing and never planned to actually launch it - and that Damien was sent not to defuse the missile but to unknowingly launch it, not into downtown Detroit but into Brick Mansions itself, in order to kill its inhabitants and clear the entire area for upscale development. Damien also finds out from Tremaine that his father was not killed by criminals but by his fellow officers, and that the mayor of Detroit was behind both plots. Damien, Lino and Tremaine confront the mayor at his office and get him to admit his plan - then reveal that they have been secretly recording his statements. The mayor is then arrested. Brick Mansions is welcomed back into the city, with Damien and Lino continuing their friendship. Tremaine runs for
Mayor of Detroit This is a list of mayors of Detroit, Michigan. See History of Detroit, Michigan, for more information about the history of the incorporation of the city. The current mayor is Mike Duggan, who was sworn into office on January 1, 2014. History o ...
, promoting the idea of equality and freedom.


Cast

*
Paul Walker Paul William Walker IV (September 12, 1973 – November 30, 2013) was an American actor. He was known for his role as Brian O'Conner in the ''Fast & Furious'' franchise. Walker began his career as a child actor in the 1980s, gaining recogniti ...
as Damien Collier *
David Belle David Nicholas Williams Belle (born 29 April 1973) is a French actor, film choreographer and stunt coordinator. He is deemed the founder and leading pioneer of the physical discipline parkour, coining it based on his training and the teachings fr ...
as Lino Duppre * RZA as Tremaine Alexander * Gouchy Boy as "K2" * Catalina Denis as Lola *
Carlo Rota Carlo Dante Rota (born 17 April 1961) is a British-born Canadian actor. He has appeared in ''Little Mosque on the Prairie'' and as systems analyst Morris O'Brian on the Fox series '' 24''. He also co-starred as Emilio Solano in ''Jane the Virg ...
as George "The Greek" *
Kwasi Songui Kwasi Songui is a Canadian actor. He is best known for playing the role of Jon Jon Hendricks in '' Blue Mountain State''. Filmography Film Television Video games References External links * {{DEFAULTSORT:Songui, Kwasi Year of birth ...
as Cecil "Big Cecil" *
Robert Maillet Robert Maillet (born October 26, 1969) is a Canadian actor and retired professional wrestler. He is known for his time in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) from 1997 to 1999, where he performed under the ring name Kurrgan and was a member of ...
as "Yeti" *
Ayisha Issa Ayisha Issa is a Canadian actress and martial arts practitioner born in Montreal, Quebec. She has played a number of roles in both English- and French-language television series and films, such as ''Dark Matter'', ''Unité 9'', and '' Brick Mansion ...
as Rayzah * Richard Zeman as Reno *
Bruce Ramsay Bruce Ramsay (born December 31, 1966) is a Canadian film, television and stage actor. Career Ramsay's screen debut was opposite fellow Montrealer Elias Koteas in the film '' Malarek'' (1988). Ramsay and Koteas went on to appear in two other fi ...
as The Mayor * Andreas Apergis as Berringer * Ryan Trudeau as Floyd * Chimwemwe Miller as The Accountant *
Carolina Bartczak Carolina Bartczak (born October 5, 1985) is a Canadian actress of Polish descent. She is known for her role as Magda Lehnsherr, the wife of Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto, in '' X-Men: Apocalypse'' and as Maura Mackenzie in the CBC film ''An Audience ...
as Nurse Clara *
Ron Lea Ron Lea is a Canadian actor, best known for his roles in '' Doc'', '' Street Legal'', and '' This is Wonderland''. Lea also served as a director on some episodes of ''Doc''. Filmography Film Television External links *Lea bio {{DEFAUL ...
as Lieutenant


Production

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as actor ...
began on April 30, 2013, and the film was released in 2014 by
EuropaCorp EuropaCorp S.A. (stylised in opening logo as EUROPA CORP.) is a French motion picture company headquartered in Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris, and one of a few full service independent studios that both produces and distributes feature ...
.
Relativity Media Relativity Media is an American media company founded in 2004 by Lynwood Spinks and Ryan Kavanaugh. The company brokered film finance deals and later branched into film production and other entertainment ventures. The company was commercially s ...
distributed the film. Following Walker's death, the North American release was scheduled for February and French release for April 23. On February 6, 2014, Relativity and EuropaCorp announced a move to April 25, 2014 as a release date for the film, along with paying the cost of the film's
world premiere A première, also spelled premiere, is the debut (first public presentation) of a play, film, dance, or musical composition. A work will often have many premières: a world première (the first time it is shown anywhere in the world), its f ...
and distribution.


Release

The first official trailer was released on February 13, 2014, featuring the
DJ Snake William Sami Étienne Grigahcine (born 13 June 1986), known by his stage name DJ Snake, is an Algerian French music producer and DJ, first achieving international recognition in 2013 by releasing an instrumentation-oriented single called " Turn D ...
and
Lil Jon Jonathan H. Smith (born January 17, 1971) better known by his stage name Lil Jon, is an American rapper, producer and former frontman of the rap group Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz. He was instrumental in the emergence of the hip hop subgenre cru ...
song "
Turn Down for What "Turn Down for What" is a song by French DJ and record producer DJ Snake and American rapper Lil Jon released on December 18, 2013. The song and its viral music video popularized the use of the phrase. The song was particularly successful in Nort ...
". The second full trailer was released on March 20, 2014.


Reception

On
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film has an approval rating of 25% based on 95 reviews, with an average rating of 4.43/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Choppily edited and largely bereft of plot, ''Brick Mansions'' wastes a likable cast on a pointless remake of the far more entertaining ''District B13''." On
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, the film has a weighted average score of 40 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences surveyed by
CinemaScore CinemaScore is a market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts based on the data. Background Ed Mintz founded Ci ...
gave the film a grade B+ on scale of A to F. Critic Jennifer Rodman, considered the film a "watered-down American version, similar in many forms...a huge disappointment". Andrew Pulver wrote in ''The Guardian'', "to be honest, Brick Mansions is not a great film — it kind of skimps on the parkour, the main reason why anyone went to see District 13." ''Variety''s Justin Chang called the film "propulsively entertaining" but was critical of the "aggressive cutting technique" which fails to allow audiences to fully appreciate the stuntwork and movements of the actors. Mick Lasalle of ''The San Francisco Chronicle'' wrote, "The movie itself makes that impossible to forget. There are cars all over the movie - car chases, car crashes, crazy driving, a scene of Walker hanging from a speeding car, and even a scene of Walker and another guy going 80 miles an hour when the brakes and the steering give out. Apart from that, there's just the awkwardness of looking at someone on screen and knowing more about him than he knows about himself." Lasalle concluded, "Things start off silly and end up laughable and ridiculous." A. O. Scott of ''The New York Times'' wrote, "this movie, a remake of the 2004 French franchise-starter ''District B13'', can be enjoyably crazy in its hectic, cartoonish way" but that it is also "brawny, dumb and preposterous."


See also

* '' District 13: Ultimatum''


References


External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Brick Mansions 2014 films 2014 action thriller films French action thriller films Hood films Canadian action thriller films 2010s dystopian films Films set in 2018 Remakes of French films Parkour in film Films set in Detroit Films set in the future District 13 films Films shot in Michigan Films shot in Montreal EuropaCorp films Films produced by Luc Besson Relativity Media films Films shot in Detroit English-language Canadian films English-language French films 2014 directorial debut films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films 2010s Canadian films 2010s French films