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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 27/12/2009 : 14:32:56
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Mesrine: Killer Instinct
Part One
Largely based on the autobiography of French outlaw celebre Jacques Mesrine, Jean-Fran�ois Richet's intriguing catalog of crime is Part One in the story. [Part Two comment as soon as I watch it.] below.
I'm not sure if I'm alone in not having heard of Mesrine [pronounced May Reen], during his years of international robbery and murder. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention.
On the face of it, yet another tale of a brutal criminal who seems almost Asberger-like in his inability to relate emotionally to those he brutalizes, well, let's just say it doesn't presage a Mary Poppins couple of hours.
But Richet, and especially Vincent Cassel as Mesrine grab you by the throat, shine a powerful light in your eyes and order you not to so much as blink. By complying you're in for one of the best films around.
Though it's entirely different from The Sopranos, it shares a focus on the private life, punctuated [lest we forget] by a front-row seat on the action. The bloody, raw, painful, messy, and borderline madness action which in no way hides behind the kind of fake-sweat exuded by such as John McClane.
I think that's what keeps us watching. The pace doesn't allow analysis-as-you-watch, but the juxtaposition of images, the way patterns of violence emerge and form almost a cocoon of safety in an unsafe world ... all that keeps you wondering what happens next.
Of course, we know by the opening shots that the ending won't be tidy, and, since Mesrine was a real bloke, there's a whole bunch of archive that proves it. But both director and uniformly excellent cast [including a wonderfully low-key Gerard Depardieu], draw you into the journey.
Those opening credits, by the way, convey strongly without words, Richet's approach. It's a question of point-of-view. Of how the way we look at something raises sub-conscious expectations of the menace of the mundane, or just a person walking down a street.
I'm looking forward to Part Two. Though I suspect it won't answer the niggling question I'm left with after Part One: how does such a thoroughly damaged and damaging man emerge from such a so-called normal household?
Middle-class nuclear family, bring back the family, the answer to aberrant behavior is the family. Politicians like former Tory leader Ian Duncan-Smith need to cleanse their simplistic views with this kind of caustic truth-soda.
I'm pretty sure lots of stuff was left out of the narrative, but I'll bet point-of-view plays some part, too.
Go see it -- Cassel's reason enough.
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Part Two
Well, as demonic has said, Part Two is less than its predecessor, and together they form less than a whole. It's not that it's bad - but Part One stands alone and Part Two doesn't.
Clearly the two parts are meant to be seen as one, so I'm as puzzled as demonic why Richet seems to have settled on a directing style that may be more conventionally accessible, but which tells us little more than we already know.
True, as Mesrine continues his path to the top spot of Public Enemy Number One, we witness him expounding on his deluded raison d'etre. Does he really examine thoughts about some existential truths, living outside the system? Does he really question his criminal allies in terms of their political beliefs? Or are these interludes the ramblings of a poseur -- not to justify his actions to himself and/or others, but to show how a man, courted and reported by the media because of unspeakable deeds, has learned to manipulate it, and find enough to think himself a hero.
Mesrine was never stupid, whatever stupid things he did. But the prison he could never escape was in his mind. It was a mind he could not always trust. There are some scenes in Part Two that, I think, are supposed to indicate he's learning to value what's human over what what's for sale. I'm guessing Richet isn't convinced either way.
Still, if you can elasticate your attention and get through the whole lot, Cassel will help, cajole, threaten, and engage you all along the way.
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Edited by - BaftaBaby on 29/12/2009 14:33:01 |
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demonic 
"Cinemaniac"
United Kingdom
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Posted - 27/12/2009 : 16:40:35
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| I thought Mesrine part 1 was quite brilliant - audacious, exciting and compelling with a catalogue of great performances. Part 2 is a crashing disappointment, which is hard to fathom seeing they must have been making them back to back, if not side by side. Much of the style, power and narrative drive of 1 is totally lacking, and none of the events of the first seem to have any bearing on the second to the extent where some events are practically copies of better scenes we've seen before and Mesrine appears not to be the man we've come to understand. Looking forward to hearing what you make of the second part though Baffy just to confirm I wasn't having an off day. |
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SixFourian
"Four ever European"
The European Union
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Posted - 16/02/2010 : 18:34:25
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| I thought I had seen the first part of this but it's not in my Cine File accolade and I don't have distinct memories of it, so I must have imagined it! |
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Mesrine: Killer Instinct & Public Enemy No. 1
