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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