Until I came across this cinematic masterpiece the first installment of a two-part series I had never aced anything about the year 1979 from a French perspective or how it was perceived in Britain. It had never occurred to me that renowned criminal would also have a British perspective attached to him.
This is the year when a French bank robber, a media darling, and an esteemed self-publicist, Mesrine who had a stronghold on every french citizen, was shot down brutally in Paris. He was attacked by French police special forces who withdrew from performing any further actions after accomplishing their mission. This event was not deemed as a criminal offense. Mesrine had claimed the title of Public Enemy Number One. As I had a chance to see the first shot of Jean-François Richet’s outstanding film, I instantly recalled the Jules Dassin’s Rififi and Jean Pierre Melville’s Le Cercle Rouge because of the introduction. The film’s introduction is shown using a split screen style which was misleading. It made me think that the film would follow the humorous British version of The Italian Job: or The Thomas Crown Affair. I stand completely corrected in this Mesrine’s case. Though the film has started on an outstanding note unlike the above titles, it is bound to end in the same way. To add things on the table, the unique perspective of seeing a self-loathing ruthless man bent assume the life of a highly selfish person was a true cherry on the top. Cassel’s portrayal of Mesrine with the strong and bushy centre moustache stole the show.
After seeing that, I thought Mann’s Public Enemies starring Johnny Depp over a similar theme was not too bad, but it’s clear now that Mesrine is far more superior. In particular, Cassel’s talent makes me question whether Depp should have ever been let out of the chocolatier’s factory. By the end of Mesrine Part One, when the “to be continued” caption appears, I hadn’t even registered that an entire two hours had passed.
This double also biopic is developed from an autobiography written by Mesrine himself and which he had distributed in prison named Death Instinct, which different his thoughts are highly subjective and like Richet says before the film, the action can’t be treated as scripture, Still, Mesrine is revealed as such a dreadful and unsympathetic person that much of it is likely devoid of exaggeration attempts.
As a prologue, it presents how He was tortured during the Algeria military service. He particularly participates in the torture and interrogation of two Algerian activists, one of whom has a sister who is later pulled into the cell. Mesrine’s commanding officer angrily glares at him as he gives Mesrine a gun and orders him to shoot the woman in full view of the suspects. Mesrine sweats and shakes, takes the gun, but points it at the male captive and shoots him instead. We begin to discern the hard, unforgiving figure that he is developing into: self-serving, brutal, and feisty, albeit unwilling to kill a woman in cold blood.
Mesrine returns to France to start a career in crime, without hiding it from anybody. He is protected by gang-boss Guido, played by Gérard Depardieu, who has dark connections to the right-wing OAS. He gets married and has kids, but in a horrifying and ugly scene, where he disapproves of his wife, he pulls a gun on her and violently chooses his criminal friends over her and the children. Mesrine then begins a relationsship with a new woman, Jeanne Schneider (Cécile De France), when he has to start fleeing to Montreal after robbing a few more casinos. With the couple’s kidnaping plan failing, he ends up getting placed in a heavily fortified prison in Canada that is mercilessly brutal. Mesrine is able to escape, however.
Prison break scenes are arguably one of the most cliched tropes, and the scenes previously depicted were so cartoonish that they had Mesrine integrating with the muscular tough bald men who were encircled by prisoners playing b-ball, and lifting weights. But strangely, the scene manages to impress. Mesrine finds the little opportunity of freedom and takes extreme measures to escape; he identifies a time and angle in which he knows guards will not be able to see him cutting the fence, and he makes sure to not get spotted when grabbing bolt cutters from the carpentry shop. All of this commotion happens while the rest of the inmates pretend to play a wild game of diversionary basketball. It is preposterous, and still, it somehow worked. I was glued to my seat. This was reminiscent of The Great Escape.
42-year-old Cassel might have reached the peak of his career with Mesrine. As my colleague Philip French puts it, “fiercely ungainly”, his face is perfect for an attractive, yet brutal, French gangster. This face can also express some degree of self-doubt and unconfident self-assertion. But never, in my opinion, will Cassel be granted the Hollywood “Green Card” the way Depardieu did. His foreigner character appearance in Ocean’s Twelve was quite irritating, but that alone does not mark him off as a nonexclusive foreigner. Above all, he is one of the finest talents. Can he strike off something equally strong? It is often very disappointing when it leads towards lad-mag pretentiousness, yet British crime noir demonstrates very efficiently with Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast and Paul Andrew Williams’s London to Brighton. Now, I wonder how deep could the period film based on the Great Train Robbery and its consequences be, assuming if it wanted to be glamorous. But in the meantime, we if the term fits can indulge in the intense, grotesque brashness of the French true crime narrative.
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