Mesrine: Killer Instinct (15) *** Dir: Jean-Francois Richet With: Vincent Cassel, Cecile de France, Gerard Depardieu EVERY great actor has a gangster performance lurking within him. Vincent Cassel unleashes his with a vengeance in this gripping rendering of the true life and wild times of Jacques Mesrine, bank robber, killer and legend in his own mind.
Jean-Francois Richet's two-part biopic - the second instalment is out at the end of this month - has been festooned with Cesar Awards in its native France. Everyone who is currently anyone in the French acting fraternity is in it. Locals have embraced it with a fervour usually reserved for transport strikes. It has even been likened to The Godfather.
That would be a compliment too far. Mesrine is a smash-and-grab affair compared to Francis Ford Coppola's majestic dissection of an entire culture. Cassel, though magnificent here, is no Pacino or De Niro. Not yet, anyway. So long on the margins of fame with roles in Ocean's Thirteen and Eastern Promises, Mesrine is an awesome display of his talents and charm.
If the first film had been half as smooth as Cassel it would have been a four-star affair rather than three. As it is, Richet (who helmed the commendable 2005 remake of Assault on Precinct 13) turns in a picture that would have benefited enormously from stopping to draw breath now and again. From the first sight of Mesrine as a soldier in Algeria through to his descent into full-blown gangsterism, there's barely time to blink. Characters come and go at a bewildering rate, with even the mighty Gerard Depardieu given relatively short shrift. The obtrusive score gets a better showing.
More a gutsy French nephew to The Godfather than a modern gangster classic, but definitely worth seeing, not least for the sublime Cassel.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article