Jacques Mesrine was a successful French bank robber in the 1960s and 70s, so successful that he was dubbed Public Enemy No. 1, the same title that John Dillinger, who earned a living in a similar manner, wore in the U. S. 30 years earlier. Vincent Cassel is just outstanding as Mesrine in two biographical films, subtitled "Killer Instinct" and "Public Enemy No. 1;" they can be seen at the Plaza Frontenac, beginning today.
Mesrine, like Willie Sutton, said he robbed banks because that was where the money was. He also was an expert in breaking out of prison, no matter how strong the security. And he was a most successful lover, too. Women followed Mesrine as if he were a rock star, or allowed themselves to be easily seduced and became devoted companions. Cecile de France, Ludovine Sagnier and Elena Anaya, some in one film some in both, are among them.
Several writers, notably Abdul Raouf Dafri and the director, Jean-Francais Richet, worked on the screenplays, and Richet, with a fine eye, directed, though he seems to linger too long in many scenes, adding unnecessary time to already long movies.
The films also are extremely violent, with Mesrine a cold-blooded foe in the criminal world, and a violent lover and demanding companion to his many women. Some excellent chase scenes, plenty of blood. The veteran Gerard Depardieu, always outstanding, steals the first film as Guido, first Mesrine's boss, then his underling, in a terrific supporting role. He's not in the second one.
Giddy over his press clippings, Mesrine slips over the edge in the second film, baiting the police, taunting the government, becoming a self-titled revolutionary and comparing himself to a one-man Bader-Meinhof gang, a group of left-wing robbers and killers in the 1960s and 70s. But regardless of his claims, he is a criminal, not a freedom-fighter, and as a wealthy kidnap victim tells him scornfully, "If you were a revolutionary, you'd have killed me and thrown my body into the street. But since you are holding me for ransom, you're just a common crook."
Mesrine: Killer Instinct and Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1, open today at the Plaza Frontenac.
—Joe