Mesrine: Killer Instinct/ Mesrine: L’instinct De Mort

The life and crimes of an iconic gangster makes for compelling drama, writes DONALD CLARKE

THE PEOPLE behind the first part of this bifurcated biopic of France’s most notorious postwar gangster may, I suppose, worry that international viewers will not be familiar with Jacques Mesrine.

Fret not, mes amis. Al Pacino played him in a popular Brian De Palma film from 1983. Ray Liotta essayed the part in a 1990 Martin Scorsese flick. Robert De Niro, Marlon Brando and (again) Pacino all attempted variations on the role in a celebrated pair of pictures by Francis Ford Coppola from the early 1970s.

Yes, indeed. The record states that Mesrine was born to a middle- class suburban family in 1936, served in Algeria, and then embarked on a career as a bank robber in France and Canada, before being gunned down by the French police in 1979. As represented in the opening section of Jean-François Richet's film, however, the gangster comes across as a rich ragoûtof Henry Hill, Tony Montana and various young Corleones.

This is not meant as criticism. The gangster odyssey is a genre in itself and, if we must have one more addition to the canon, then why not one featuring the coil of charismatic energy that goes by the name of Vincent Cassel?

Richet, director of the tolerable remake of Assault on Precinct 13, brings a certain degree of style to the film. Detailing his antihero's brutal experiences in north Africa, his meeting with Gérard Depardieu's kingpin and his eventual association with Cécile De France's equally pitiless villain, Richet utilises split-screen, hyper-real lighting and handheld camera to seductive effect. The director's depiction of Mesrine's appalling experiences in a brutal Canadian prison are particularly powerful.

Mesrine: Killer Instinctbelongs, however, to Vincent Cassel. Consistently gimlet-eyed and viciously restless, Cassel manages the tricky business of staying within the archetype while still allowing a new, characteristically French class of hoodlum to emerge.

One might argue that the film is not certain how uncertain it is about its protagonist (if you get my drift). The Mesrine who ladles out charm on Wednesday seems like a different character to the Mesrine who kicks his wife down the stairs on Thursday. But the star makes such a compelling enigma out of the gangster that most viewers will eagerly flock back to the concluding Mesrine:Public Enemy No 1when it opens at the end of the month.

Mesrine: Killer Instinct/ Mesrine: L’instinct De Mort

Directed by Jean-François Richet. Starring Vincent Cassel, Cécile De France, Gérard Depardieu 16 cert, Cork Omniplex; Cineworld/IFI/Light House/Screen, Dublin, 113 min