Review of Brick Mansions (2014) by Anand K — 30 Apr 2015

Although I never got a chance to see District 13, with Brick Mansions being one of the final films to feature a leading performance from Paul Walker, Brick Mansions was worth it either way.

Brick Mansions is a film with essentially no plot. Its script is generic and dull while the story itself is the same. The film is actually just a basic crime one with political undertones which need not apply, while its high concept setting feels too much like it is taken from Escape from New York without enough creativity to justify it. But as well as that, there are so many characters getting thrown around in the story for a variety of dramatic purposes which is way too much for either the audience or even the director to keep up with. Brick Mansions takes itself way too seriously all too often by obsessing over the characters and the lacklustre story in general. As a result, Brick Mansions does not maintain as much action as it could have and should have which severly limits the entertainment value, partiularly considering that the film is supposed to be built on action. The ultimate flaw of Brick Mansions is the fact that what little story there is proves to be more focus than the action which slows down the pace of the feature.

District 13 was a film most notable for the impressive array of parkour scenes it built its action upon, particularly the skills of David Belle who is credited as the founder of parkour. The same cannot be said about Brick Mansions however. As a remake I would not expect it to create the same effective innovation, but as an action film my hope would be that Brick Mansions were to succeed as a guilty pleasure. Brick Mansions suffers the same fate as essentially every mainstream American action film today in the sense that in desperation to appeal to an American PG-13 audience it buries much of what happens in the action scenes beneath choppy editing. The cinematography is more stable and less on the shakycam, but the editing is still very quick. However, this is not always the case. While older viewers are more likely to be frustrated by the speed of the editing in Brick Mansions, my tolerance for it was actually inconsistent. I always felt annoyed that it could have been much better and I did get occasionally frustrated at it as I always do, but in Brick Mansions it wasn't as bad as other action films. The worst of the choppy editing occurs during the close contact fight scenes. They aren't incomprehensible, but considering that Paul Walker clearly want to show of his impressive fighting skills, Brick Mansions offers little to ensure that is realized. However, the actual parkour scenes themselves are rather entertaining because David Belle's skills are very impresive and his technique is strong enough to transcend the stiff editing. At least the cinematorgraphy does't zoom in too much, but rather takes on some effective angles to emphasize the scale of success in his technique. All in all, the action in Brick Mansions is inconsistent and far from perfect, but it has its moments and that's more than you can say about some of Luc Besson's other productions suchas Taken 2 and 3. At least Brick Mansions stands out for its sporadic yet entertaining use of parkour, even if it may not make the same impression that District 13 did or be high enough in quantity to truly be a half-decent film.

Paul Walker is a genial presence in Brick Mansions. Although the character he is stuck with allows him little room to breathe as an actor, he remains an effective action hero nonetheless. Brick Mansions is able to capitalize on the status of Paul Walker as Brian O'Connor from the Fast and the Furious series by putting him through some car chases, but more importantly it challenges him to try is hand at parkour. It is clearly not him all the time, but his efforts are bold and swift as he leaps through the air and engages in combat. Brick Mansions displays Paul Walker making use of the same parkour skills that he used in his penultimate performance in Furious 7, proving even beforehand that he was pushing his skills to the limit and branching out. Paul Walker's role in Brick Mansions easily caters to fans of his and makes use of his ability to show off a new set of skills, making his real life demise all the more heartbreaking considering just how much more potential he had to make use of. At least Brick Mansions had the decency to pay a brief tribute to the death of the actor.

David Belle is also an entertaining sight. Though his English language acting skills are nothing to boast about, his aforementioned parkour skills are incredible. Althoug Brick Mansions is largely a mediocre effort to make use of his skills, they are still thoroughly impressive. David Belle has the easy ability to jump from roofs and through windows with the technique of a smooth ballet performance artist and the talent of intergrating it with fighting skills extremely well. He is an awesome man to have teamed up with Paul Walker because the two of them bring their own personal skills to the table and it is clear that Davide Belle's abilities have rubbed off on Paul Walker in the long run. David Belle recreates his skills from District 13 for American audiences in Brick Mansions, and even though the less than stellar plot and occasionally stiff editing work against him, the incredible parkour art that he contributes to the film can not be ignored at all. David Belle is pretty much the best reason to watch Brick Mansions, and it is just good to see him back to doing whahe does best in a commercially succesful action film with a large audience.

So Brick Mansions features the talented action skills of Paul Walker and the exceptional parkour abilities of David Belle, but sporadically entertaining action is buried beneath a dull plot which takes itself too seriously.