Yesterday’s release of the poster for action thriller remake Brick Mansions heralded a familiar next step: the arrival of the first trailer for Paul Walker’s last completed film role. It’s full of everything you might expect, so prepare for lots of bullets, blasts, cars, fights and just a little buddy comedy.
Set in a near-future Detroit, Brick Mansions has Walker playing Damien, an undercover detective assigned to chase down a stolen weapon of mass destruction. When he learns that the man responsible – a violent drug dealer – has taken it into the walled-off ghetto known as Brick Mansions, he reaches out to the agile Lino (David Belle, who starred in both the original District 13 and its sequel) for help. Lino knows the place better than anyone and isn’t afraid of the drug dealers (including kingpin Tremaine, played by RZA) who run the place like their own little kingdom.
Walker shows off the sort of abilities he brought to the Fast & Furious films, and even gets to try his hand at some of the stunts, though wisely leaves most of the crazier stuff to Belle, the parkour expert who has made a career in intensely physical roles and is now hoping to break into more acting. The two also swap jabs as well as trading punches with henchmen such as Robert Maillet’s towering Yeti.
It’s not every film that sells itself as coming “a writer of The Transporter,” but then they mean writer-producer Luc Besson. Camille Delamarre, himself a veteran, in the editing department at least, of both the Transporter and Taken films, steps up to direct here.** Brick Mansions **is set to arrive in the US on April 25, but has no UK date as of yet.