**** out of *****
Jacques Mesrine (pronounced May-reen, or May-reign, or even sometimes, May-reign-uh) was a real-life French criminal who was sort of a cross between John Dillinger and Goodfellas. His sordid life was made into two movies in 2008 (or 07 and 08, depending on your online sources). The first film details his rise to becoming France's public enemy number one.
It starts with his release from the army, where he discovered a taste for brutality while torturing the rebellious Algerians (pretty ironic/hypocritical, considering how he fancied himself a rebel later on). He returns to France, and quickly hooks up with gangster Gerard Depardieu, rising through the ranks of Depardieu's small mob and eventually striking out on his own as a kidnapper and bank robber in both France, Canada, and even escaping to the U.S. once (although he was apparently apprehended in Arkansas, not Arizona as the movie depicts).
As Mesrine, Vincent Cassell is simply brilliant. He's got the perfect amount of charm and violence needed to show why this character is both magnetic and horrifying. The film remains neutral on Mesrine, showing us his life instead of making a judgment. We see the fun, party aspect of his life with girls and money, and we also see his sense of honor and loyalty (like when he tries to go straight...he accepts being laid off, and doesn't blame his boss).
But we also see the horrific violence he inflicts, and the crazy anger hiding just beneath his eyes. This is a guy who one minutes loves his wife and the next minute shoves a gun in her mouth. But we also can see why…the boss was not disrespecting him, just doing what needed to be done. A wife trying to hold him back from his own desires…to him, that's disrespect.
Director Jean-Francois Richet has a good grasp of American crime sagas, and does this in the grand seventies tradition of something like The Godfather, Serpico, or GoodFellas (yes, I know GoodFellas isn't from the seventies, but it's also in that same style). It bounces along, giving us glimpses into his life at different times. This can sometimes work against the film, as we sometimes don't really get to know the people orbiting him. But Richet does a good job with the passing of time. He shows us things that we know take a certain amount of time: babies being born, jail sentences, etc. And even though he sometimes skips action we think we'd like to see, he spares us one more bank robbery in order to prime us for the stunning (and amazingly off-the-cuff) jailbreak scene toward the end.
It can be choppy sometimes, but it works in that 70s way, and gives us a full portrait of one man's slow descent into crime. Definitely worth seeing, especially for fans of crime movies.
No comments:
Post a Comment