MESRINE:PUBLIC ENEMY NO 1

AT THE CLOSE of Mesrine: Killer Instinct,Jacques Mesrine (Vincent Cassel), France's most notorious hoodlum, seemed to have robbed every bank worth robbing and escaped every prison that offered a meaningful challenge. Think again. There was, it appears, plenty more to come.

Part one of Jean-François Richet's sprawling epic was exciting stuff and, sure enough, the sequel proves an essential watch for anybody still pondering its closing cliff-hanger. Public Enemy No 1brings us into the 1970s and finds Mesrine being seduced by the dubious glamour of that era's radical underground.

The gangster had, from what

we can judge, no lucid political convictions, but, like too many gun- wielding opportunists, he chooses to take on the pose of a revolutionary. His motivations remain, however, personal and financial. When, for instance, he murders a journalist who has been rude about him in a right-wing paper, it is made very clear that he cares more about pride than The People.

Assisted by an admirably lupine performance from Cassel, Richet offers another series of intricately staged, consistently involving set-pieces: an escape from a courtroom, the robbery of a casino, Mesrine’s ultimate elimination by frustrated police.

In each individual action sequence, the director demonstrates a sure grasp of the dynamics of violence, but it must be admitted that the second part lacks structure and, at an unnecessary two and a quarter hours, it soon begins to seem overly repetitive.

Oh, and somebody really should have warned Richet about the cheesiness of his efforts to summon up London in the early 1980s. Bobbies? Red Buses? London Callingby the Clash? Where are the dancing beefeaters?

A fine gangster epic, nonetheless.