Wednesday 9th September

Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1

Director: Jean-Francois Richet
Year: 2008
Stars: Vincet Cassel, Ludivine Sagnier, Mathieu Amalric


Having seen the first of this two-parter (Mesrine: Killer Instinct) at the cinema a couple of weeks ago, I was really keen to see the second half. The first half was excellent, so I had high expectations for this one too.

And it is a good film. It picks up basically where the first film left off, looking at the second half of Mesrine's life. But that's sort of where the problem is. The middle part of Mesrine's life is much of the same thing happening over and over again, so the first half of this film feels like it's repeating what we've seen before. This would be fine if either a) it had been a while since you'd seen the first film or b) you hadn't seen the first film. Unfortunately, neither of these applied.

Thankfully, just as I was starting to drift off and feel like I'd seen this all before, the film picked up it's pace and things started to get interesting - and different- again. The final 15/20 minutes were especially engaging, and if you had seen the first film, all the more interesting for it. Still a good, much better than average, gangster movie, but this time around, with a couple of flaws.

Rating: 4 out of 5

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About Me

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I live in Bristol with my husband Dan (who I married in July 2007), my son Joe (born 2012) and daughter Jess (born 2015). I work at UWE (the University of the West of England) in Bristol as a Research and Open Access Librarian. I'm orginally from Exeter, so moving back to Bristol is a bit like coming home - especially as I studied for my undergraduate degree here (also at UWE). I love travelling and movies, although I get to do a lot less of both since the birth of our children. Although we have still managed to fit in holidays to the Isles of Scilly, Chamonix and a summer in California since Joe was born.