Review of Mesrine: Public Enemy #1 (2008) by Ian M — 17 Apr 2011

I am going to use this review to assess both films, Killer Instinct and Public Enemy #1. They really are two parts of the same movie and should actually be viewed as such. Each without the other is significantly lacking.

Mesrine is an interesting character, which I see is how they got Vinvent Cassel to want the role. He is a thug and a thief who has managed to fool himself into believing he is some Robin Hood revolutionaire.

Again, if you watch either film by itself, you don't get this quite as spot on as you do when they are together. He is about his appearance and wants the world to always be talking about him, and talking about him in the light that he believes he should be.

In essence he has delusions of grandeir but his success as a criminal allows him to maintain said delusions. Again, a very interesting character. Unfortunately the movies are not as interesting. One issue I had is that we don't see the crimes as thoroughly executed as we see the escapes.

So the love I felt for the escape scenes I never felt for the robberies (arguably a bigger part of the plot). But more than that, the themes of the movie were too disconnected and drove the movie all over the place.

The movie plays out like a combination of 3 other famour crime movies. We have the successful arrogant and ruthless criminal of Scarface. We have the dashing robber and escapist who loves the press from Public Enemies.

And we have the man who's crimes are interfering with his family, as seen in Blow. While these premises are all interesting, because there is no work to properly blend these elements, they become too disjointed to move the story or the character forward in an interesting way.

It's a good two movies, but not the crime epic it could have been with a little more focus on plot.