The Vincent Cassel performance juggernaut continues with the further adventures of French criminal mastermind, Jacques Mesrine. This is a bloated gangster epic split into two parts after Mesrine: Killer Instinct was released earlier this month.
Frustratingly failing to pick up where we left off, Public Enemy Number One is something of a French Fugitive. Now a notorious criminal, Mesrine’s most wanted tag has created a socio-political ego that threatens his need to remain underground. So we have more face changes than The Saint, and a penchant for ever-elaborate bank robberies that lead to his already depicted downfall.
It’s tempting to cut and paste the reaction to the first instalment because this really is more of the same. It’s still held together by a larger than life central performance – this time literally. As well as eating up the screen Cassel has devoured a lot more in his efforts to go “method”, giving the greedy gangster a paunch De Niro would be proud of.
It still has the same episodic feel to proceedings; rob a bank, hit a casino, go to prison, escape, rob a bank, and so on, and the choppy time shifting device is even more jarring. Par exemple, a drawn out, hot footed pursuit across the countryside with sniffer dogs hot on their trail suddenly shifts to a worry-free Mesrine on the pull in Paris. There is no explanation; it’s a cinematic crime he would be proud of.
This time we are thankfully given numerous partners in crime, most notably Quantum of Solace’s lizard featured Mathieu Amalric. Teaming up during the excellent wall scaling prison break, Amalric gives a nice bit of balance to the narrative now that Cassel has morphed from the cocksure young criminal into a detestable fundamentalist willing to cross the line during one particularly nasty torture scene.
Despite failing to reach the heights of part one, there are still plenty of excellent flashes here. There is a notable sense of humour that had previously been lacking, and one scene of genuine tension during a countryside road block. It provides one of the few sequences to actually play out to a climax.
The finale is a perfect epitaph for this two-part tale: there is no Heat-style face off, no trumpeting of a fallen anti-hero, and strangely none of that customary wrap-up text. After the flashy set-up of the superior Killer Instinct, much like Mesrine himself, this ends with something of a whimper when you’d expected a bang.
[etRating value=“ 3”]
Frustratingly failing to pick up where we left off, Public Enemy Number One is something of a French Fugitive. Now a notorious criminal, Mesrine’s most wanted tag has created a socio-political ego that threatens his need to remain underground. So we have more face changes than The Saint, and a penchant for ever-elaborate bank robberies that lead to his already depicted downfall.
It’s tempting to cut and paste the reaction to the first instalment because this really is more of the same. It’s still held together by a larger than life central performance – this time literally. As well as eating up the screen Cassel has devoured a lot more in his efforts to go “method”, giving the greedy gangster a paunch De Niro would be proud of.
It still has the same episodic feel to proceedings; rob a bank, hit a casino, go to prison, escape, rob a bank, and so on, and the choppy time shifting device is even more jarring. Par exemple, a drawn out, hot footed pursuit across the countryside with sniffer dogs hot on their trail suddenly shifts to a worry-free Mesrine on the pull in Paris. There is no explanation; it’s a cinematic crime he would be proud of.
This time we are thankfully given numerous partners in crime, most notably Quantum of Solace’s lizard featured Mathieu Amalric. Teaming up during the excellent wall scaling prison break, Amalric gives a nice bit of balance to the narrative now that Cassel has morphed from the cocksure young criminal into a detestable fundamentalist willing to cross the line during one particularly nasty torture scene.
Despite failing to reach the heights of part one, there are still plenty of excellent flashes here. There is a notable sense of humour that had previously been lacking, and one scene of genuine tension during a countryside road block. It provides one of the few sequences to actually play out to a climax.
The finale is a perfect epitaph for this two-part tale: there is no Heat-style face off, no trumpeting of a fallen anti-hero, and strangely none of that customary wrap-up text. After the flashy set-up of the superior Killer Instinct, much like Mesrine himself, this ends with something of a whimper when you’d expected a bang.
[etRating value=“ 3”]
