Mesrine: Killer Instinct / Public Enemy No. 1

Film Review by Dave Kerr | 27 Jul 2009
Film title: Mesrine: Killer Instinct / Public Enemy No. 1
Director: Jean-François Richet
Starring: Vincent Cassel, Cécile De France, Gérard Depardieu, Mathieu Amalric,
Release date: 7 Aug / 28 Aug
Certificate: 15

Jean-François Richet returns to the director’s chair for the first time since his so-so 2005 remake of Assault on Precinct 13 with this timely antidote to Michael Mann’s distant and subdued take on the latter days of John Dillinger. Trading the streets of Chicago for those of Paris, the bandit of the hour (or four, but who’s counting) is Jacques Mesrine, another real life gangster whose life shares various parallels with Dillinger’s. Following his monosyllabic passage aboard Pitt and Clooney’s Oceans showboat, Vincent Cassel reinforces the menace of the ‘bad man’ typecast he owns with a spellbinding turn as the eponymous villain in this two-part thriller.

Part One (Killer Instinct) sees a young Mesrine resolving to embark on a life of crime under the sleazy wing of Guido (played with relish by Gérard Depardieu), having soldiered in the Algerian war and grappled with domesticity in the aftermath. However, Mesrine’s increasingly ambitious stick-ups soon draw too much unwanted attention to Guido’s doorstep, spelling a lengthy vacation in Canada where he finds himself in league with the Quebec Liberation Front and ultimately a new niche as a daring escape artist.

Part Two (Public Enemy No 1) sees Mesrine – now as the flamboyant anti-hero – on home soil and elevated to the upper echelons of the most wanted list in 70s Paris. While our protagonist reclines into his status as people’s champion, Richet drip-feeds the audience as Mesrine pulls heists, mocks police, escapes prisons and publicly shrouds himself in antagonistic political sloganeering as the narrative ominously slow-burns towards an end you knew was in the post the minute your bum touched the seat.

Much like Dillinger’s story, there already exist a number of attempts to tell Mesrine’s definitively, though with this much grit, sass and suspense - as well as Mesrine’s memoir as source material – on tap, you're advised to call off the search in the case of this villain. [Dave Kerr]