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11 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
Masterpiece Part 2, 24 November 2008
Author: GUENOT PHILIPPE (philippe.guenot@dbmail.com) from France

Last Month, I commented Mesrine Part One: "L'Instinct de Mort".

Now, there is Part Two.

This movie is as terrific and exciting as the previous one. The characterization as fascinating and poignant too. Cassel gives here his best performance ever. Whatever he will do in the future, he will never do better. He has reached here the top of his career.

I'll just describe one sequence. Somewhere the equivalent of the one I gave you for the previous chapter. Remember, when Cassel and Depardieu took a woman protector - an Arab - for a "ride" in their car.

Here, in this movie, Cassel and his anarchist, revolutionary and extreme left winged friend Lanvin - Charlie Bauer - take a journalist for a ride in their car, too. An extreme right winged one. A fascist. So, when the journalist in question tells the two men that the Algerians deserved to be killed in Paris, in 1961, and thrown in the Seine by Papon's policemen, don't miss Lanvin's eyes in the rear mirror. Don't miss his face. Especially when you already know that Lanvin -Bauer - fought for free Algeria, and that he hates fascists to the death.

At this moment, you understand that this journalist - who also told in his papers that Mesrine was a traitor for his friends and a coward too - was going to live some "difficult" moments...

So delicious to witness in the audience, I mean.

And about the very ending, the last shot of this film, I promise that every one in the theatre stays still some minutes afterwards. Stroke by lightning. Even if every one is prepared for it.

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8 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
Somewhat underwhelming, but an acceptable conclusion nonetheless, 19 January 2009
7/10
Author: Max_cinefilo89 from Italy

Filmed back-to-back and released a month apart, the two movies chronicling the violent, exciting life of French bank robber Jacques Mesrine were undoubtedly meant to be a high point in the careers of both director (Jean-François Richet) and star (Vincent Cassel). At least, that was the case with the first installment, Death Instinct; the follow-up, Public Enemy Number 1, isn't quite as accomplished.

It starts exactly like Part One, with the scene of Mesrine's death, only this time we're shown the reactions of the public as well, especially that of a police office named Broussard (Olivier Gourmet). We then go back in time to witness Mesrine's multiple criminal acts, arrests, trials and successful escapes. In fact, one could almost say he gets caught on purpose in order to plan a stunning break-out. During one of his lengthier stays in prison, he befriends another crook, Jean-François Besse (Mathieu Amalric, Bond's adversary in Quantum of Solace), and once the two are out of jail they form a nearly perfect team alongside Mesrine's new wife Sylvie (Ludivine Sagnier). Too bad good old Jacques has been declared the French nation's biggest menace, which effectively authorizes Broussard and his team to take him down if necessary.

The title, which is obviously taken from the real-life scenario but could just as well be a homage to William Wellman's celebrated gangster picture, would appear to indicate the film is tonally similar to Death Instinct. It isn't. Whereas the first part was a dark crime film, the conclusion is a lighter deal, a caper, so to say, in the same vein as Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's trilogy (in which, coincidentally, Cassel had a pretty important role). Perhaps it was a deliberate choice to make the second chapter more fun, an ironic contrast of sorts to the bleak ending, but as a result the picture comes off as less interesting from a psychological point of view. Amalric, in particular, while delivering a charismatic performance, isn't given a proper chance to develop his character like Cassel was able to in Death Instinct. As for the leading man himself, his work is still riveting, but even he suffers from the lighter mood and lack of focus (he's still the best reason to watch the movie, though).

Nonetheless, the film moves at an acceptable pace, showcasing good set-pieces and giving Richet the opportunity to switch genres within the same movie. It doesn't quite work as expected, but the mess he handles is still a lot of fun, even if not truly worthy of a figure as complex and fascinating as Jacques Mesrine. Well, at least he's always got the first installment to look back on fondly.

6,5/10

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Part deux, 29 October 2009
8/10
Author: kosmasp

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I'm guessing, that you have watched the first part, before you go on and read any reviews about Part 2 of Mesrine. A reviewer wasn't satisfied, because the movie seems like a 200+ min movie cut in half. Well I guess the user is right, but should that affect your rating/how you like the movie?

I don't think so, but then again, you have to make up your own mind. The movie itself is based on the real life character, portrayed greatly by Vincent Cassel. Unfortunately you get reminded quite a few times how this movie will end. Which is OK, for the french audience who already know how the story ended, but for people like me, who didn't know that much about the person, it was kind of a spoiler.

Still even though I knew, what was going to happen, the ending was filled with tension. It is shot and edited in a great manner and kept me on the edge of my (cinema) seat. And even as I was telling myself, that the ending was obvious, I still couldn't stop from being excited. Maybe it's only me, but this deserves your attention, even if it's only on the small screen (TV).

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Lands successfully between crime thriller, gangster saga and character study, 26 September 2009
8/10
Author: you'llneverbe from United Kingdom

*REVIEW OF BOTH PARTS*

There is a short paragraph that opens both "Mesrine" films; the exact wording escapes me, but it says something like "no film can accurately portray the complexities of a human life". This seems to be a pre-emptive defense, as if Richet anticipates criticism for a lack of depth or some glaring omissions. After all, Jacques Mesrine is apparently still a famous name in France, and his public persona lives on. If even half his supposed exploits were true, the story would still be crying out for a definitive dramatisation. As such, Richet has wisely avoided making any real ethical judgements of Mesrine's character, focusing instead on the sex, violence and publicity that he thrived upon. But it's Vincent Cassel's committed and exuberant performance that develops this meat-and-potatoes content into an unbiased character study of excess and, over all, a very fine pair of movies.

"Mesrine" may not seem to be particularly even-handed at first because of the glamour, the wisecracks, and the endless charisma, all of which are drawn from the rich stylistic tradition of the Gangster Movie, and used very skilfully in its favour. The fast pace of the story ensures we are either seduced or repulsed by the central character, and rarely anywhere in between. Sympathy or pity is irrelevant, and he is too brutal and trigger-happy to be rooted for as a regular protagonist. The first film is the slicker of the two, and the more visually satisfying due to the wonderfully stylish recreation of early 60s Paris (and elsewhere). Cassel plays Mesrine with youthful vigour here. He's all style and brash confidence, as endearing a wiseguy as any of Scorcese's characters. It's "Goodfellas", in fact, that "Killer Instinct" is most reminiscent of, with its sharp-suited mobsters (including a brilliantly grizzled Gerard Depardieu) and episodic year-hopping narrative.

By the half-way point, Mesrine is still something of an enigma. It's only in "Public Enemy No. 1" that the pace slows down and we can see, through a few intimate and contemplative scenes, what he has sacrificed to live as a superlative criminal. "I wasn't much of a son, I'm not much of a father either." he says, while in disguise visiting his own ailing father in hospital. He gradually alienates his closest friends and accomplices by trying to maintain the outlandish public profile he cultivated, rambling pseudo-revolutionary politics to journalists and threatening to kill judges and destroy all maximum security prisons. The "Goodfellas" ensemble of the first part becomes the isolated, ego-driven "Scarface" of the second as Cassel skilfully matures his character into a man resigned to the fate he knows must be coming.

The over all impression left by "Mesrine" is that it manages to land successfully between crime thriller, gangster saga and character study. This is achieved by the virtue of a standout central performance, as well as Richet's shrewd application of an American film-making style to a very French story. It ought to go down among the top crime dramas of the decade, or at the very least raise the (already decent) international profile of its impressive leading man.

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The second part to the epic story of France's most renowned gangster, Jacques Mesrine., 22 September 2009
6/10
Author: David Phillips from United Kingdom

Where the first film follows a reasonable story arch, but remains episodic, this film seems to abandon the narrative and instead jumps through the remaining years of Mesrine's career and life. It reminded me a little of reading a biography; which, of course, it probably should. However, it reminded me of reading a biography that I got bored of, i.e. I start reading it intently and then flick to the bits I'm really interested in from about half way onwards. The episodic film that worked so well in the first instalment became more similar to a sketch or clip show. I guess, at having established the character there was little more to show, other than a particularly lazy interview sequence. By lazy, I mean that having the lead character get asked a series of questions, it meant the film did not have to show anything more than that. In the first instalment, I felt that no such sequence was necessary, as the film showed a subtle enough touch to provide the audience with information without having it delivered straight to them. Cassel was as engaging as ever, although I did feel that there was little to stretch him in this film. Although Cassel did show himself to be equally at ease performing comedy, as he is at playing pure rage. He was ably supported by Mathieu Amalric, with their scenes together bordering on laugh out loud funny. Dispersed within the comedy sketches are absolutely edge of seat heist, escape and action sequences. These parts, for me, with their accompanying score made the film. Without these, it would have seemed a very disjointed effort. However, one sequence that was really overcooked was the sequence involving Mesrine and his girlfriend leaving their house only to have their car blocked by the police: the first film opened and ended with this sequence, albeit shown in different views and the second film did the same. The last of which was excruciatingly ponderous and added several minutes onto a film whose story had already been told. Overall, I felt that I would have been happier sitting in the cinema for 3-4hours watching the first film unfold into a more complete view, than to sit through 2 films of 2 hours that don't seem to sit quite right next to each other as a single vision. www.writeronthestorm.wordpress.com

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4 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
"The Legend"/"Public Enemy No. 1": the self-destructive exploitation of the image, 23 February 2009
8/10
Author: Chris Knipp from Berkeley, California

Part 2 is more episodic than Part 1, but it has several unifying elements: the relationships with a notable accomplice, the quiet, secretive, but equally bold Francois Besse (Matthieu Amalric); with his last and perhaps most romantic girlfriend, Sylvie Jeanjacquot (Ludivine Sagier); and, after a special "anti-Mesrine cell" has been created just to track him down, with the police manhunt that ends his life. Their code name for him is simply "le grand," the Big One. Above all the film now has an overriding focus on Mesrine's growing public identity, which he consciously shapes. This grows out of the energetic theatricality of Vincent Cassel's performance. There are various scenes of Mesrine "performing" in a police station (where Part Two begins); for journalists of high-circulation weeklies; in court; robbing banks; and for the world at large. If there was once a discernible difference between his public and private life, it has disappeared now that he's assumed arch-gangster status. Cassel literally takes on volume, having put on 45 pounds for this part of the role. His character is solid, confident, and aware of his public image at all times, and with his inflated self-importance, he redefines himself as some kind of savior of the common man from the tyranny of the banks and the bourgeoisie. Various more sophisticated thinkers try to explain to him that the banks aren't the problem, and that robbing them doesn't alter the system and perhaps reinforces its importance.

As Part 2 begins, the now notorious gangster has made his way back to France. Spectacularly, Mesrine and another accomplice escape by holding up a Compiègne courtroom where he's about to be put on trial, taking the judge hostage on the way out. This segment is told in flashback: the gangster is telling his story to the cops after getting caught. He is subsequently furious to learn that the dictator Pinochet has seized page one of the newspapers by being apprehended, and pushed him out. He immediately demands a typewriter and begins to write his first autobiography, L'Instinct de mort (Death Instinct) to gain more attention.

But we also see Mesrine concealing his now more prominent public identity by assuming a series of disguises. He dresses up as a doctor to visit his dying father in a hospital and say goodbye. ("Why are you here?" his dad asks. "Well," answers Jacky, "all the banks were closed. . .") He not only gives Paris Match an important interview, but (in a sequence of excessive violence) tracks down, tortures and murders right-wing journalist Jacques Dallier (Alain Fromager), who enraged Mesrine by having written a piece for the journal Minute calling him a "dishonorable crook" and claiming he has "betrayed" his associates. And we see Mesrine operating through the medium of his attorney (Anne Consigny, of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and A Christmas Tale), who risks her career by helping him get pistols for yet another of his escapes--one that includes fording a river and passing a police roadblock in a farmer's Peugeot.

This time, he escapes with the reserved, suspicious François Besse (Matthieu Amalric), who, like him, has already escaped from prisons three times before and is treated as a celebrity by prison guards. Besse is a sharp contrast to the flamboyant Mesrine and thinks him foolish and mad, though like everyone else, he respects his courage and audacity. The two men rob the Deauville gambling casino's coffers, posing as inspectors to get in. But before that at Mesrine's instigation they pose as Paris cops checking on the local police headquarter's duty roster, to find out when the station is least well-manned. Besse is uneasy about such bold maneuvers, but even more, questions Mesrine's talking to 'Paris-Match' and claiming he's a revolutionary. But it's the late Seventies, the time of the Aldo Moro kidnapping in Rome.

After hearing about the Red Brigades and the Badder Meinhof, Mesrine tells Besse he wants to attack maximum security prisons, in the same way that he went back and attacked the Guantanamo-like Special Corrections Unit in Quebec. The film tells us the SCU's malpractices were ended as a result of Mesrine's exposure of them after his escape. Meanwhile, he persuades Besse to help him kidnap Henri Lelièvre (Georges Wilson), a millionaire Paris slumlord, for ransom, telling the slumlord he represents the PLO. This is another exploit that doesn't go as planned, but leads to a bold escape.

For a while Mesrine connects with Charles Bauer (Gérard Lanvin), an out-and-out radical, and it's with him that he traps and snuffs the right-wing journalist. Bauer in particular debunks Mesrine's claims of being a revolutionary.

The two-film diptych is bookended with the final police shootout in Paris traffic at the Place de Clignancourt that kills Mesrine with Sylvie Jeanjacquot and her little dog at his side, after he has used the slumlord's money to buy her a lot of diamond jewelry and himself a luxury model brown BMW. This is a convention of the genre--the bookending with a final showdown--but the way it's expanded in the finale of Part Two shows both films' fine sense of detail. Olivier Gourmet, among so many others, excels as Commissioner Broussard, head of the anti-Mesrine unit whose operatives are so terrified when the short, now overweight Mesrine walks by where they're hiding.

'L'ennemi public nº 1' had a November 19, 2008 theatrical release in France. It is part of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema at Lincoln Center, March 2009.

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6 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
A worthy follow up to Death instinct, 21 November 2008
8/10
Author: doomgen_29 from France

All in all, i highly enjoyable and competent work from Richet, he truly captured Mesrine animal like charisma, his rebellious and determined character, his savagery and his sense of humor. Cassel did a amazing job as well, he's so impressive, funny and scary, idealist and cynical, he really brings it all on screen. One really as to salute Richet's accomplishment here, the pressure on him was huge, Mesrine is truly France's "Scarface" (only here it's for real !), known by all and fascinating as hell, i mean the guy was a superstar, a media freak who wonderfully played with the media to get some kind of support from the population and ridicule the system and the government, and he almost reached his goals! Now i just cant wait for the BR to arrive, so i can watch both movies consecutively and confirm my first impression, which is that Richet has done something huge, exiting and impressive, un coup de maître if you will !

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1 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
exciting gangster epic, 18 April 2009
8/10
Author: antoniotierno (antoniotierno@hotmail.com) from Italy

Not a generic crime movie, it certainly has also something of every crime story but much more energy and realism, due to both Cassel's performance and a strong direction that gets to cement effectively the whole story. There's a lot of violence but also an effective job of transforming the movie's central character into a rounded and strongly captivating figure. Cassel is more than electrifying and, although the director leapfrogs many years, the work of describing this big character proves to be perfect. Another element of the film is the Martin Scorsese style, defined by professional reviewers as violent escapism. Of course the whole epic is centered on one performance rather than the plot but I think the second part of this story works even better than the first

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2 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
More of the same high-octane excitement pretending to be a biopic, 2 August 2009
7/10
Author: Framescourer from London, UK

Naturally this being the second part of a grand (i.e. two-part) biopic, one would expect this film to slow a little, become more operatic, darken and deepen... not a bit of it. This film is, more or less, as exciting as its predecessor. Clearly, the two Mesrine films are a single 200+ min feature chopped judiciously in half.

The problem for me - and there is a significant problem here - is that Mesrine's story is not substantial enough to bear such opulent retelling. That's not to say there's not enough material. Mesrine is nothing if not a series of chapter-sized episodes and this is the manner in which Richet competently tells the story.

Yet when you're being presented with the Nth crime you begin to look for some extraneous purpose to the action. Though there are a number of opportunities to set up dramatic investigation, Mesrine remains a closed book. He's existentially opaque and no further dramatic enquiry is attempted. It's the same way in which John Dillinger's interests can be listed in a single breath, which also disguises itself as a disarming chat-up line.

I have to say that Richet and Cassel are right to have made the film that they did, as Mesrine strikes me as a rather boring thug. Yet this is the country of Jean Genet, voleur of folklore, a socially criminal outsider entertained and lauded by the likes of Jean-Paul Sartre. Surely there was a better subject for their interest than Mesrine? If not then surely the actual existence of Genet or the successful fictional meditation on crime that Patrice Leconte managed with L'Homme du Train would have informed a different manner in which to dramatise Mesrine's story?

Cassel and Richet have set out to make a matinée thriller and succeeded admirably, despite being disingeniously long-winded. It's not really a 'biopic' so much as an action movie that uses the recollections of a charismatic but monodimensional individual. In this half of the film, all the production plaudits pertain to the same crew once again and the new support cast of significance are as solid and nondescript as in Part 1. 7/10

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0 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Rogues And Richets, 28 August 2009
5/10
Author: writers_reign from London, England

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

As an actor - and I use the word very, very loosely - Vincent Cassell has two strings to his bow, two parts he can play to a fare-thee-well; clean-shaven sociopath and sociopath with facial hair and he gets to display both in this second film glorifying violence. Cassell is complemented by Ludo Sagnier coupling - in every sense of the word - two of contemporary Frech Cinemas' non-actors. Luckily for the audience there are some REAL actors in support in the shape of Anne Consigny, Olivier Gourmet and Mathieu Amlaric, all of whom presumably needed the money for this, like its predecessor could just as easily have been called La Merde de Paris, though that would have been insulting to two other REAL actors, Jean Gabin and Arletty and one REAL director, Marcel Carne. Being the son or daughter of a fine, popular actor/actress is not of course easy - one thinks, for example of Guillaume Depardieu, Jim Mitchum etc but for every three or four of them there is a Vanessa and Lynn Redgrave or, in France, a Claude Brasseur. Jean-Pierre Cassell was an exceptionally fine French actor who graced some distinguished films and his son, Vincent, might have had the decency to change his name if, as is clearly his intention, he wants to forge a career out of portraying ultra violent sociopaths.

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