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Film Review - Mesrine: Killer Instinct
Bold, stylish and sexy, Mesrine: Killer Instinct is the first instalment of a two part biopic which reveals the extraordinary exploits of the notorious French gangster Jacques Mesrine.
The title role is played by Vincent Cassel, who lends an enigmatic allure to a difficult and sometimes unnecessarily violent character, the faults of France’s most popular murderer are on full display throughout, but seem lesser than the sum of their parts due to the immersive swagger of Cassel.
The film begins with a brilliantly engaging, Bullitt-inspired title sequence, with a constantly changing three screen split, which shows a disguised Mesrine, presumably in the latter days of his career. We follow the ‘Man of a Thousand Faces’ as he picks up a suspicious package and drives, accompanied by a mystery woman, also in disguise, through the streets of Paris. The fate they meet, as a machine gun aimed at the pair is unveiled from the back of a lorry, is left unanswered. Instead the scene cuts and we are jettisoned off to the Algerian war, where Mesrine spends his formative years in the unseemly company of torturous French soldiers.
The banality of life, when the young not-yet-criminal returns to Paris, converts Mesrine to the lawless trade, in no time at all he is recruited by the repellent, godfather lite mob-boss Guido (Gerard Depardieu). After a number of successful bank heists, Mesrine ruffles too many feathers and elopes to Quebec with the Bonnie to his Clyde, Jeanne (Cecile de France). Seemingly converted to a lawful life, the pair eventually stumble upon a potentially huge payout, and the ultimate failure of this grand heist and his imprisonment propels him to international notoriety.
Despite being dubbed Public Enemy Number One by the French and Canadian authorities, Jacque Mesrine regularly topped magazine polls as the most popular man in France. The film, based on his confessional writing whilst imprisoned, shows the full extent of the glamorous and charming criminal, and is replete with gripping action sequences and occasional moments of tenderness. Mesrine: Killer Instinct is an incendiary addition to the gangster genre, I await the second part with impatience.