In America, the majority of our recent gangster films are either urban tales with handsome rappers but little plot or elaborate period dramas with a celebrity lead dressed in designer trench coats and fedoras. Thankfully, French director Jean-Francois Richet's gangster drama "Mesrine: Killer Instinct," the first part of two complementary films, arrives to remind us of past crime classics from Jules Dassin and Jean-Pierre Melville and just how vibrant and exciting the genre can be.
Throughout the '60s and '70s, Jacques Mesrine (Vincent Cassel) sometimes pulled two bank jobs at a time; escaped from prisons and courtrooms and acted the celebrity by giving interviews and posing for photos with "Paris Match."
To his credit, Vincent Cassel makes it immediately clear that he alone has the believable gruffness, unique sex appeal and simmering temper to play Mesrine. Cassel has been called the "Robert Mitchum of our time" and never has that compliment been truer than with "Mesrine."
French police gunned down Mesrine in an ambush 30 years ago but the legend of Mesrine has not dimmed in his native France. French rapper Seth Guéko calls himself the "spiritual son of Jacques Mesrine" and French teens wear t-shirts with Mesrine's profile and the text "Profession Public Enemy." What Richet accomplishes with his film epic is to export Mesrine's legend around the world.
Actress Cécile De France is every bit as cunning as his pretty accomplice Jeanne Schneider. Michel Duchaussoy brings an element of sadness to the story as Jacques' suffering father who wonders what went wrong with his son. Gérard Depardieu matches Cassel's intensity as Guido, a mob boss and member of the OAS right-wing terrorist group who takes the young Mesrine under his wing. The scenes between Cassel and Depardieu, especially one when they decide what to do with an Algerian pimp they kidnapped, are electrifying.
Vincent Cassel, who charged art-house audiences as a brutal boxer in the 1995 drama "La Haine," delivers a larger-than-life performance most actors never get the chance to play. It's worth noting that Cassel earned a record for the number of shooting days for any actor in the history of a French film production and a French Best Actor César and anybody who watches the film will applaud his Herculean effort. Cassel leaves nothing behind with his performance. He makes playful use of moustaches, wigs, added weight and beards. He swaggers believable around his male cohorts and turns up the charms with women. Most importantly, Cassel never lets you forget that Mesrine is a killer with a dangerous temper.
Richet directed the flashy remake of "Assault on Precinct 13" and while "Mesrine" has plenty of visual style thanks to standout work from his "Precinct 13" cameraman Robert Gantz and editor Hervé Schneid there's also a welcome sense of history and complex human drama. Based on Mesrine's autobiography called "Death Instinct," "Mesrine" is less "The Italian Job" and closer in spirit to Brian De Palma-inspired split screen, crime drama "Carlito's Way."
"Mesrine" is a gangster drama through and through but what's impressive is how Richet and his co-writer Abdel Raouf Dafri ("A Prophet") reveal French history through Mesrine's life. His experiences during the Algerian war in the '50s, the political activism of the '60s and the right-wing French politics of the '70s all play a role in Mesrine's criminal odyssey. Richet even offers the idea that his time in Algeria working for torture squads may have helped turned Mesrine into a brutal killer.
What's perfectly clear by the end of "Killer Instinct" is how Mesrine could be both public enemy number 1 and the most popular man in France. He's that fascinating and the film that pulls back the curtain on his life is equal to the complicated man.
5 out of 5 stars
Distributor: Music Box Films
Director: Jean-Francois Richet
Scriptwriter: Jean-Francois Richet, Abdel Raouf Dafri, from Jacques Mesrine's autobiography Death Instinct"
Cinematographer: Robert Gantz
Editor: Hervé Schneid
Cast: Cecile de France, Elena Anaya, Gerard Depardieu, Vincent Cassel, Gilles Lellouche, Roy Dupuis
Running Time: 113 minutes
Producers: M6 Films, StudioCanal, La Petite Reine and Thomas Langmann
Rating: R
Release Date: August 27, 2010
