Mesrine: Public Enemy #1
Dir: Jean-Francois Richet
Rating: 3.0/5.0
Music Box Films
127 Minutes
Mesrine: Public Enemy #1 arrives a week after Mesrine: Killer Instinct, finishing the story of the gangster who robbed a multitude of banks and became the scourge of French police for a period in the ’70s. But rather than create a probing character study, director Jean-Francois Richet instead opts to film a four hour plus action movie featuring some real life players. Episodic, but less violent than its predecessor, Public Enemy #1 is filled with some rousing set pieces, but does nothing to help us understand the man French police gunned down in cold blood on November 2, 1979.
Did I just spoil the end of the film for you? Don’t worry, you already know how Jacques Mesrine is killed after the first five minutes of Killer Instinct, completely deflating the tension in Public Enemy’s final scene, a thrilling cat and mouse chase that has been completely defanged by Richet’s decision to go all frame structure. This technique has ruined many a film since its creation and the Mesrine duo is no exception.
The second half begins a few years after Killer Instinct. Mesrine (Vincent Cassel) has put on a tremendous amount of weight but is still robbing banks. It is a tumultuous time for Europe as violent left wing groups like the Red Army Faction are terrorizing Italy and Germany. Richet continues to frame the government as culpable as Mesrine, painting the cops and judges as nothing more than soulless cogs in a soulless society. Just like the evil jailers in Killer Instinct, it’s hard to feel bad for any of the people Mesrine beats up or shouts out, including the numerous women he beds and then discards.
Public Enemy #1 also sees Mesrine become seduced by his newfound notoriety. He becomes involved with leftist terrorists, confusing his bank robbing exploits with bringing down the government. And one of the film’s most brutal sequences involves the beating of a journalist who slanders Mesrine’s ethics in a rightist publication, saying he uses his partners and then hangs them out to dry. But since Richet never shows Mesrine double-crossing anyone, what is he saying here? That the journalist deserves the torture he receives at Mesrine’s hands?
Just like Killer Instinct, Public Enemy #1 features a daring prison escape, this time with the help of criminal Francois Besse (Mathieu Almaric). For a while, Mesrine and Besse form a criminal partnership, but part when Besse becomes critical of Mesrine’s love of Cristal, BMWs and national press. Smart move, Besse. By the time we’ve reached this second film, Mesrine’s ego has swollen along with his waistline.
Ludivine Sagnier is given a perfunctory part of Mesrine’s arm candy Sylvie Jeanjacquot, seduced by the quasi-cause célèbre the criminal has become. But the scene where Mesrine and Sylvie meet is both unbelievable and risible and what’s with the shopping spree scene that seems to be lifted from National Lampoon’s European Vacation?
As the film rumbles to its prognosticated finale, Mesrine has shot and screwed his way across two continents, broken out of four prisons and stolen untold amounts of money. But after spending four hours with the man, it is unclear whether we should feel bad for his bloody corpse at the end or just be relieved that he didn’t live long enough to give Richet the ammo to make a third part.
by David Harris
