{"id":9605,"date":"2010-08-04T14:59:50","date_gmt":"2010-08-04T22:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=9605"},"modified":"2010-08-04T14:59:50","modified_gmt":"2010-08-04T22:59:50","slug":"mesrine-killer-instinctpublic-enemy-no-1-2008-jean-francois-richet-france-canada-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=9605","title":{"rendered":"Mesrine: Killer Instinct\/Public Enemy No. 1 (2008, Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Richet): France, Canada, Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Richard Feilden<\/a>. \u00a0Viewed at Ocean Avenue Screening Room, Santa Monica.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The opening moments of Mesrine: Killer Instinct<\/em><\/a> filled me with dread.\u00a0 Multiple, split-screen perspectives had me wondering if director Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Richet had turned the film\u2019s protagonist, notorious real life gangster Jacques Mesrine, into a Thomas Crown-esque gentleman-criminal, or worse a comic book anti-hero.\u00a0 I need not have been concerned.\u00a0 I was not being set up for a fun filled heist romp.\u00a0 Rather, the fractured frame sets up the life of the man who is the focus of each shot.\u00a0 Though based upon Mesrine\u2019s autobiography, this two-part film adaptation (part one is <\/em>Killer Instinct<\/em><\/a>, part two Public Enemy No. 1<\/em><\/a>) refuses to glamorize its protagonist.\u00a0 Instead it paints a fascinating portrait of a psychopath with press-fuelled delusions of grandeur.<\/p>\n

Though the films are \u2018based upon\u2019 the book that Mesrine himself wrote, it is made explicit from the opening moments that Richet and his co-writer Abdel Raouf Dafri (also responsible in part for last year\u2019s dynamite A Prophet <\/em>screenplay) have extrapolated, as the film opens with Mesrine\u2019s death at the hands of the French police.\u00a0 It then quickly rewinds to the first episode in his life that we are to witness.\u00a0 Serving in the military in Algeria, he is commanded to execute a young woman in order to make her brother reveal the location of a bomb.\u00a0 He shoots the brother.\u00a0 Thus begins the films\u2019 four hour episodic journey, from petty crime through cold blooded murder, towards his inevitable death.<\/p>\n

Mesrine\u2019s refusal to kill the girl sets up one of the many contradictions that he embodies.\u00a0 He won\u2019t kill the Algerian woman, and later in the film he executes a pimp for beating a prostitute senseless, yet he forces a gun into his wife\u2019s mouth during an argument, and assaults most of the women he\u2019s seen with.\u00a0 His numerous prison breaks are intricate and well conceived, while an attempt to rescue others is farcical and doomed.\u00a0 His entire personality is tied up in the public\u2019s perception of his anti-establishment deeds.\u00a0 He is contrary and compulsive, railing against captivity when he does far worse to others.\u00a0 Towards the end of his life, fuelled by his own press, he drapes himself in the catchphrases and ideology of a political movement that his cunning mind seems barely to understand, but whose colors he is sure will grant him greater press-allure. But the press is as contrary as Mesrine himself, and the attempted murder of a journalist whose articles don\u2019t fall in line with Mesrine\u2019s self image inevitably leads to a backlash and his demise.<\/p>\n

Vincent Cassel is superb in the lead role.\u00a0 His Mesrine is brutal and savage, but with moments of utter charm.\u00a0 He is<\/em> Robin-Hood as he thumbs his nose at the judiciary and, once he has been caught you find yourself willing him over the walls and through the barbed wire fences to freedom, just as the French public did when he ignited their imaginations.\u00a0 Yet within moments, Cassel turns him, seamlessly, into the snarling monster you knew needed caging from the start, and you fear for those around him.\u00a0 This is the film\u2019s greatest strength in many ways.\u00a0 It never lets you get carried away for more than a moment in the criminals life before forcing you to stare at the beast within.\u00a0 We are complicit with the public who cheered him on, while those unfortunate enough to cross his path cowered before his rage.\u00a0 To glamorize Mesrine would have been a great mistake, and it is one that the film, even taken as it is from Mesrine\u2019s own words, ably avoids.<\/p>\n

The rest of the cast in both films ably support him, but special mention must go to G\u00e9rard Depardieu who dominates his scenes with a slickly-grim, intimidating presence as the crime-boss who takes Mesrine under his wing.\u00a0 Also worthy of praise is Richet and Dafri\u2019s screenplay which, even at four hours with the two films combined, never drags.\u00a0 Mesrine\u2019s episodic life sizzles from one caper to the next, the pace of the film matching his self-destructive path.<\/p>\n

My only real concern is over the two part nature of Mesrine.\u00a0 While Killer Instinct and Public Enemy No. 1 chart separate arcs in his life, neither really makes sense without the other.\u00a0 I may often moan that films need their fat trimming, but this one fills its four-hour running time with ease. \u00a0\u00a0I hope that at least the choice to watch them in a \u2018double-bill\u2019 format will be offered.\u00a0 Your legs might fall asleep, but you certainly won\u2019t.<\/p>\n

In the interest of full disclosure, Mesrine: Killer Instinct and Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1 were screened free for members of the press.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Richard Feilden. \u00a0Viewed at Ocean Avenue Screening Room, Santa Monica. The opening moments of Mesrine: Killer Instinct filled me with dread.\u00a0 Multiple, split-screen perspectives had me wondering if director Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Richet had turned the film\u2019s protagonist, notorious real life gangster Jacques Mesrine, into a Thomas Crown-esque gentleman-criminal, or worse a comic book anti-hero.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}