The French seem to love their gangster epics lately. Earlier this year, Olivier Assayas unveiled his 5 hour plus “Carlos” about the famed titular terrorist. We saw the film at Cannes and more recently at MIFF and while it was flawed, our writers definitely agreed that it was a compelling and thorough piece of work. With the two-part “Mesrine” finally arriving on North American shores two years after hitting theaters in Europe and earning nominations in nearly every major category of France’s Cesar awards, our expectations were high. Unfortunately, Jean-Francois Richet’s nearly four-and-a-half-hour epic on the famed criminal Jacques Mesrine is a confounding film, one that left us wanting the two-parts to be both longer and shorter at the same. Unfocused, hop-scotching through events, while curiously having a number of characters enter and leave the picture at random, “Killer Instinct” and “Public Enemy #1” leaves viewers with a contradictory feeling of wanting more time for the story to unfold or simply having a single film with a slimmer, streamlined narrative.
“Killer Instinct”: Unfortunately, part one is also the most problematic of the two films. In fact, talking with the team after the screening, this writer advised that viewers could probably skip it altogether and still walk into “Public Enemy #1” without missing too much of the story. In fact, the film opens with the closing scene of the “Public Enemy #1” (sidenote: can we please call a moratorium on director’s pulling this cheap narrative move?) and frankly, we think it plays better if you don’t know how Mesrine meets his end. Anyway, after a fairly clunky opening, with some overworked multiple split screen credit sequence that gives away the end of the film, we’re dropped into a scene from Mesrine’s years in the Algerian army. It’s a harrowing sequence that is only notable in confirming that Vincent Cassel, no matter how much make up you apply, can not believably play someone who is 19 years old. Anyhow, we shortly arrive at Mesrine being introduced to Guido (Gerard Depardieu), an aging gangster who welcomes him into his criminal empire (thought, it’s not really explained how powerful — or not — Guido and his organization is). Impressed by Mesrine’s bravado and fearlessness, Guido quickly entrusts him with his most serious work. Unfortunately, Mesrine makes a mess of things, pisses off the wrong people and with Guido unable to protect him, he flees to Canada with his mistress and criminal partner, Jeanne (Cecile De France). There, they end up taking up where they left off, with bank robbing becoming a particular favorite. Mesrine also finds an ally in Jean-Paul Mercier (Roy Dupuis). Together they form a formidable criminal duo as well, sometimes robbing two banks in a row. They are eventually caught and arrested, but not even jail can contain Mesrine as he plots and executes a breakout, one of many he will conduct in his lifetime.
“Public Enemy #1”: Now back in France, where he is nothing short of a media sensation thanks to his crimes, his willingness to a take a good picture and to deliver a juicy quote, Mesrine is declared Public Enemy Number One, a title he relishes. It seems that with even more attention on him, Mesrine’s ambitions grow bigger. While serving time, he meets Francois Besse (Mathieu Amalric) who becomes his new criminal ally. Together they execute yet another jail break and fall into a familiar pattern of brazen bank robberies. Soon Mesrine’s wild ambitions, revolutionary doubletalk and media mugging become too much for Besse, but grabs the attention of Commisaire Broussard (Olivier Gourmet) who makes it a personal mission to bring him down. It isn’t long before the two are on a collision course to meet, resulting in a showdown that’s both shocking and tragic.
The one factor that keeps the film engaging is the magnetic, powerful performance by Vincent Cassel. It’s not just his physical transformation — he goes from skinny to ungainly over the course of the film’s duration — but a commanding performance of a man who lives grandly well over the line between law-abider and law-breaker. And while the rest of the cast is strong too, they are largely underwritten to the point of irrelevance and it certainly doesn’t help that for many of them, their screentime is surprisingly short.
“Killer Instinct” and “Public Enemy #1” remain a curious achievement. Richet knows his way around an action sequence and setpiece, and the second part of the film in particular benefits both from his crackerjack energy and pure excitement of these unbelievably true events brought to life. So it’s not surprising then that part one is, for the most part, comparatively lifeless. Left to direct dramatic scenes, Richet (who also wrote the screenplay with Abdel Raouf Dafri) can’t seem to find the importance of these segments, or in general, which elements were important to Mesrine as a character or not. Perhaps it was due to how he lived his life, but personal relationships — with the exception of a couple of longtime girlfriends — are absent, leaving a big question mark as to who the man was behind the bravado.
And therein lies the real problem with these films. While comparisons have been drawn to “The Godfather” and “Goodfellas,” where those films had clearly defined interpersonal relationships, and beautifully described both the world in which these gangsters operated and how it fit into the bigger picture of society at large, the ‘Mesrine’ films exist solely within the insular world of the titular character, to the point of isolation. It’s difficult to spend four hours with a character you don’t really get to know and a certain point, ‘Mesrine’ becomes an endless stream of events with only a very tenuous connective tissue.
Unfortunately, ‘Mesrine’ is not the grand scope epic we would’ve hoped. At best, it’s a satisfactory, if generic, run through the gangster genre. And if you’re tight on cash and need to choose just one, “Public Enemy #1” might be the better bet.
“Killer Instinct”: [C]
“Public Enemy #1”: [C+]