Please don't spend money on this.

Just perfect...

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Directed by Jean-Francois Richet from a script that he co-wrote with Abdel Raouf Dafri, "Mesrine: Killer Instinct" is the first half of a pair of crime epics that have been incredibly successful over the last several years in France and other European countries. The films regularly tell the life story of the legendary Jacques Mesrine, an internationally famous criminal responsible for dozens of bank robberies and murders in the '60s and '70s. The story begins and ends with his "Bonnie and Clyde" death, ambushed by Paris police. In between, we learn about his introduction to violence in the Algerian War, his attempts at finding a meaningful job and his boredom with those jobs. We see his charming self as he seduces women and charms enemies. Mesrine was a criminal who knew how to keep his friends close but his enemies closer. When he's caught robbing a wealthy couple's apartment, Mesrine persuades them that he's a police detective called out on a robbery and advises them to come down to headquarters and file a report. And he walks out with their money. It's hard to find any sympathy for someone so extremely violent. But this is kind of vital to a thug. After he robs a bank, Mesrine notices there's another bank across the street, so with sirens going off and police coming down on their heads, Mesrine pulls off the second bank job. One of the most shocking scenes in the movie is the way she is treated by Mesrine when she is the mother of their three children. Mesrine violently hits his wife and then drags her down the stairs as she tries to run away. He pulls out his gun and puts it in her mouth and tells her "when it's between you and my friends, ill always choose my friends." No soon after he finishes that statement they notice their daughter saw the whole thing. Despite the graphic violence, Cassell creates a memorable character, maybe as memorable as the real man he portrays. Director Jean-François Richet is a French screenwriter, director, and producer, born on July 2, 1966 in Paris. He grew up in Meaux, a suburb east of Paris and comes with an anti- authoritarian stance, as evidenced in his earlier, inner city films, État Des Lieux and Ma 6-T Va Crack-er. In 2009 Jean-François Richet was nominated best picture for Killer Instinct. Jean-François Richet has also received many awards for part two of this film, Public Enemy.

without any coherence, mesrine, follows the hollow life of the hollow sociopath and murderer, mesrine. After a nearly unwatchable opening sequence; the movie starts in earnest with the torture and murder of algerian rebels who, fighting for independence in their own country, get tied by chains to ceilings and then are shot by the protagonist.A lovely man, from the start. One can tell. He returns to France, then after losing his paycheck playing cards, turns to a life of crime; robbing houses and brutally murdering despicable pimps before winding up in prison for, robbing a bank. He puts a gun in his wife's mouth when she asks him not to continue on this path, witnessed by his daughter who yet, still 'loves him'All the while, sad orchestral music bemoans the fate of the hardened criminal who must life a life on the run, handsome and behind the wheels of fancy cars, with remarkably beautiful who have fallen hopelessly in love with (at first sight) him. It is the tale of a poor man from a middle class french family, who despises arabs, and steals from the innocents, all because his father was beholden to his mother and had no 'balls' It's a good thing that they are still making movies like this; ala American Gangster, glorifying/deifying murderers. So, if that's your thing, respect at the price of decency, by any means; ruthless murder and the disgusting glorification of it, by all means, this is the movie for you.Someone might, (if justice ever prevailed) commandeer all the revenue from this sickening film, and give it to poor children for school and books.

This is a fast-paced, stylised biopic charting the rise of Jacques Mesrine (Vincent Cassel), the murderer and media manipulator who became France's most wanted man. It begins with a methodical, initially cryptic sequence set in 1979, then flashes back, tracing Mesrine's service in the Algerian War and his relationship with his father, whom he derides as a collaborator, before enquiring: "Do balls skip a generation in this family?" Mesrine is hard to root for, beating women, spouting racist epithets and sticking a loaded revolver in his wife's mouth, while the movie's mid-section follows the crime/punishment film template too rigidly to be truly gripping, but the piece builds to a truly gobsmacking, nerve-shredding climax with a lo-fi prison escape that consists simply of the hero attempting to snip through surrounding fences with wire-cutters. Cassel is absolutely excellent in the lead, carrying the film on his shoulders and compensating for a script that sometimes skimps on its characters' motivations. Gerard Depardieu, as Mesrine's mentor, is a little underused, but adds weight to the supporting cast, his first meeting with Cassel being particularly memorable.

Vincent Cassel has had a great varied career. I can remember him from watching L'Appartement in the Cinema back in the 90s, and he was great then, and he has carried on that line to this double feature gem. Mesrine is possibly showing him at his greatest and it's a role he has got his teeth into.The film is based on the real-life of French gangster Jacques Mesrine (title character). His life when you read it seems too bizarre to believe but it's true and we only just get a summary of it in this film.The film doesn't bother paying homage to other gangster films in its genre (thankfully) and rather just goes to fitting in the life of this gangster. A very complex character, the scriptwriters don't try to make us side one way or the other with our lead character.A dark character, from the myriad of events that we see in this film you will love or loathe him. Strictly you should loathe him, but there are elements that make him to be a charming rogue and it is that contrast to the violent thug that marks him out against other villains in his field. Possibly that is what has helped to make him a legend.Great directing, filming and acting from all make this a great pleasure to watch. Gerard Depardieu plays his role as a mentor to Mesrine with such great menace that he just steals the film whenever he is on the screen, he hasn't lost it.A cracking film and I definitely would recommend it to everyone.