Film review: Mesrine - Public enemy number one

Published on Thursday 27 August 2009 18:59

MESRINE: PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE (15) **** DIRECTED BY: JEAN-FRANÇOIS RICHET STARRING: VINCENT CASSEL, GUY MATHIEU AMALRIC, LUDIVINE SAGNIER

PART two of Jean-Franois Richet's crime epic about France's notorious kidnapper and bank-robber Jacques Mesrine arrives just three weeks after its brash, relentlessly paced predecessor and manages to be a superior picture in every way.

Not only does it provide a breathlessly exciting concluding chapter, it deepens our understanding of Mesrine by providing some psychological complexity to counter the unapologetically celebratory first half. Following him through six manic, audacious years on the lam, it shows how Mesrine's increasing awareness of his notoriety and belief in his own press-inspired reckless bravado and delusions of grandeur, mostly involving his status as a political radical.

Aligning himself with the likes of the Baader-Meinhoff gang, he kids himself on that he's tearing down the system, but his new partner-in-crime (Mathieu Amalric) has his number, and uses him to line his own pockets, while Mesrine robs banks for some delusional higher purpose. Vincent Cassel steps things up a gear here as Mesrine, showing the cracks in his psyche and thoroughly deglamorising the rock-star aura he created in part one, Killer Instinct.