While District 13's co-writer/producer Luc Besson made his mark with such coolly smart action-thrillers as La Femme Nikita and Léon, his directorial presence over the past decade has been slim to say the least. However, as creator of chock-socky-inspired actioners including Unleashed and the Transporter films he's proved positively prolific.

Here, despite handing directing duties to fellow Frenchie Pierre Morel, Besson's penchant for the frenetically absurd is stamped on every aspect of the paper-thin plot. It's Paris 2013: the city's violent, criminal and anarchic fraternity is segregated from the rest of the populace in a heavily policed compound. When the ghetto's most powerful renegade gang hijacks a neutron bomb, a falsely convicted felon is forced to team up with a super-cop to retrieve it before all hell breaks loose.