Simply A Masterpiece

Excellent, a Must See

A Disappointing Continuation

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

This second part of the two Mesrine movies shows us the return of Mesrine to France, how he became the public enemy number one and how he was finally gunned down by the French police after two extreme decades of living on the edge of life.The acting of Vincent Cassel as Mesrine is even more profound and insightful in this part as in the first one. The way he demands pardon for all the bad things he had done in front of his dying father or how his daughter meets him as he is imprisoned are truly touching events. The way how Mesrine is left alone by all of his partners and friends in the end and how his girlfriend acts after his death are also very intense and sad moments of the movie.With the great and charismatic Mathieu Amalric that portrays François Besse, there is a new interesting character in this movie that forms an explosive and very diversified partnership with Mesrine.The second part of the movie also adds a lot of absurd, dark and sometimes almost surreal humour in comparison to the first part for example when Mesrine and Besse try to cross a river, when Mesrine and another gangster kidnap an old millionaire or when Mesrine gives some of his strange interviews.The problem I have with this movie is that it is somewhat repetitive. Mesrine commits a murder or theft, gets imprisoned and finally escapes and the circle begins again which is very predictable. Even though Amalric does a great job, I also miss some more memorable characters such as the ones portrayed by Gérard Depardieu, Cécile de France or Roy Dupuis in the first part.Neverthelss, this movie is a truly solid and essential continuation of the first and better part of this masterpiece and portrays the final years of one of the most stunning gangsters of the twentieth century. Both parts are definitely worth your time and money if you like straight but still insightful gangster movies.

MESRINE: PUBLIC ENEMY #1 is a sequel, or actually Part II of MESRINE: KILLER INSTINCT. It is important to note this fact because for the casual viewer who picks up this DVD first there will w a lot of background story missing. Apparently there is somewhat of a cult of Mesrine devotees, so powerful was his image as the most devious criminal of the 1960s -1970s in France. Or perhaps it is the media that makes criminals like Charles Manson, Bonnie and Clyde, John Gotti, Al Capone, John Dillinger etc etc 'heros' to the public. But if examining the lives of such beings entertains you then this film may register. Apparently the first film in this biopic showed the development of Jacques Mesrine (Vincent Cassel) as he becomes a bank robber, kidnapper, jail breaker, etc, but this film starts with Mesrine in court form which he escapes and then proceeds to rob banks and kill people and eventually end up believing in his own grandeur as Public Enemy #1. The film was written by Abdel Raouf Dafri and director Jean-François Richet who obviously are more concerned with setting up ambushes and escapes and robberies than with character development. The is one well-written scene in the film - Mesrine sneaking into a hospital where his father (Michel Duchaussoy) is dying that is true drama, but the rest is rather uncontrolled raucous crime. Vincent Cassel is such a fine actor that he is able to bring to life this atrocious character (having not seen Part 1 leaves any advantage that film may have given to his character development and why this actor suddenly has a beer gut, etc). He is abetted by Ludivine Sagnier as his pickup girlfriend Sylvia, Mathieu Almaric (another very fine French actor) as his accomplice François Besse, Samuel Le Bihan, Gérard Lanvin, Olivier Gourmet, and Georges Wilson. The film is overly long (133 minutes) to tolerate all action/no story, but one factor remains: Vincent Cassel's performance is intriguing, right up to his grisly death scene. Not for the faint of heart or for viewers who appreciate a script with a story. Grady Harp

I loved Killer Instinct, the best film I've seen in 2010, perhaps in the last few years. Vincent Cassel is stupendous at Jacques Mesrine, a brutal and bold bank robber with an ego that would intimidate Sigmund Freud. In Public Enemy, Mesrine's ego continues its meteoric growth, but his character development stagnates. And that's what makes Part 2 not as good as Part 1.Part 2 is simply entertainment for those who enjoyed Mesrine's bravado in Killer Instinct. Bold escapes and robberies, shoot em ups, etc. But without any character growth--and a pseudo- revolutionary mindset does not ring authentic--you come away thinking that you've seen this before and done better in Part 1. In fact, with a little thought, parts 1 & 2 could have been merged to make one heckuva movie at a longer than average length. But it's still worth watching and, in fact, worth purchasing. Go Vincent Cassel.

Not having seen the first installment about the life of French criminal Jacques Mesrine, perhaps we are at a disadvantage. But recently, we caught the second part of the story in DVD format. The life and times of the man that was so resourceful in escaping captivity, gets a fabulous treatment at the hands of director Jean-Francois Trichet. The whole project owes a lot to the amazing performance by Vincent Cassel, not one of our favorite actors, but one has to recognize he made the whole picture enjoyable.Of course, we never even heard about the real Mesrine, but his life, the way it comes out in Abdel Raoul Dafri and the director's screen treatment is the stuff that made folk legends, much like the American gangsters in the period of the Great Depression. Unfortunately, not seeing the first part, there are things that are hard to comprehend by just watching the conclusion of the story, which is told documentary style.Vincent Cassel's take on Jacques Mesrine is what makes the viewer stay riveted to what is happening on the screen. Mr. Cassel has had his share of playing creeps before, but as Mesrines, he gives the performance of a lifetime. Mathieu Amalric appears as Francois Besse, the partner of Jacques' most daring escape from prison. Ludivigne Saigneur is seen as Silvia. Georges Wilson has a small pivotal role as the rich man Henri Lelievre, kidnapped by the two partners. Others in the large cast are the wonderful, but totally unrecognizable Oliver Gourmet, Gerard Lanvin, and Samuel Le Bihan in secondary roles.A lot of credit must be given to the amazing Robert Ganz cinematography and the careful editing by Bill Pankow and Herve Schneid. The music by Marco Beltrami and Marcus Trumpp adds a layer to the texture of the movie. One can understand the difficulty in making the film look real if one considers this is a story that happened more than thirty years ago. A lot of credit must go to the creator Jean-Francois Trichet for his achievement in recreating the story of a criminal that shook France during the time when he terrorized the country.