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Sometime during the 1990s, the French government cordoned off a section of Paris, isolating the city’s poor, uneducated and criminal elements in a dingy barrio called District B13 (the locations of B1-B12 are never mentioned). Faced with a public no longer willing to tolerate the downside of civilization, the government withdraws all social services from the District, leaving the area’s two million inhabitants to their fate. Soon a violent feudal hierarchy forms, and a handful of drug lords run the place with gangs of hardened enforcers. Today, at least one man tries to maintain an oasis of civilization in this hellhole, a man named Leïto (David Belle), who enforces a no-drug haven in his apartment building. Leïto is what you might call an anti drug-lord-lord, which is admirable but with no obvious source of income, I’ll have to assume this idealistic young man pays his well armed henchmen with hugs instead of money.

As the film begins, Leïto has stolen a cache of drugs from Taha (Bibi Naceri), B13’s most nefarious gangster. Taha’s goons trace the theft to Leïto and catch up to their target just as he destroys the stolen merchandise. Up to this point, the film seems like another derivative big screen action movie with small ideas, full of smirking, self reverential swagger. But Leïto’s flight from his pursuers across the rooftops of Paris is one of the most inventively thrilling chase sequences you’ve seen outside of Hong Kong, particularly since it contains no vehicles, no wire stunts and no special effects. I’ll say it right now – as an action movie, one of the greatest assets of District B13 is a reliance on real stunts and an almost complete absence of CGI.

Of course, Taha’s retaliation is swift, and like any self respecting mob boss, he kidnaps a member of his adversary’s family. Being the starry eyed optimist he is, Leïto seeks the help of the police, and is quickly betrayed and imprisoned. When it comes to B13, the authorities have no interest in what happens there, or to whom it happens. That is, until Taha’s gang manages to get their hands on a deadly government prototype and hold all of Paris at ransom with it. Enter Damien Tomaso (Cyril Raffaelli), a standard issue action movie super-cop who’s introduced to us in an extended sequence where he single handedly takes down another of B13’s crime lords armed with nothing but a silk shirt and fifth degree black belt. Damien is just as idealistic and physically invulnerable as Leïto, and it doesn’t take the government long to see that these two men are their best bet to infiltrate B13 and stop Taha from unleashing his new toy on the city.

Leïto, now in prison, is released to Damien’s custody and despite their initial mutual dislike, they have 24 hours to stop Taha, save Leïto’s family and uncover a sinister government plot that threatens to unravel the entire operation. Don’t worry – it isn’t as complicated as it sounds – B13 is essentially a "one man army" flick with an extra man. Thankfully though, it takes what could have been a very dated riff on a very '80s concept and turns it on its ear. The film proceeds with a wink and a nod; it comes off as light and fanciful as a Jackie Chan adventure, but with considerably less camp and far more violence and profanity. Fair warning - the only "13" in this movie is in the title – put the kids to bed before viewing.

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