MESRINE: L’INSTINCT DE MORT (France/Italy/Canada 2008) ***
Directed by Jean-Francois Richet

THE KILLER INSTINCT is almost a perfect vehicle for a Canadian/France co-production since MESRINE’s life of crime takes place equally in France and Quebec.  This is part 1 to be followed by the release of Part 2 entitled PUBLIC ENEMY No. 1 IN October, after its release first in Quebec.

Mesrine (correctly pronounced mai-rine in France and later incorrectly as maiss-rine in Quebec) is an extremely violent and incorrigible armed robber whose exploits include bank robbery, kidnapping and a grand prison break that all made headline news around the world.  With so many ladies under his arm (he was wed twice), his colourful, if not blood soaked life requires two films for the complete telling.  Yet, if one were to follow the events in his life, quite the few chunks (like his life in the Canary Islands) have still been left out.  The KILLER INSTINCT, the first of two films based on his book, tells the story of the initial part of his life from France to the first few years when he moved to Quebec.  The second continues from there!

Richet has his audience rooting for the Mesrine character at the every start.  He uses the tactic of respect.  Mesrine does away with the pimp who had violently beaten up one of the girls, Sarah (Florence Thomassin) whom he (Mesrine) had slept with.  But the Mesrine character is so intriguging, charming and psychotic, it could be argued that Richet need not have needed to do anything for the audience to love Mesrine.  Cassel totally inhabits the role of the volatile character.  He can do not wrong even when he places a gun in the mouth of his wife, Sofia (Elena Alaya).  The supporting character of Guido played by Gerard Depardieu is equally captivating.
MESRINE returns audience to good old fashioned action and graphic violence.  The adrenaline flows better in films made this way than in films clouded with special effecs and pyro-techniques.  Whether smashing a hood’s face with a broken bottle or stabbing a pimp a few times in the stomach, Richet’s film has rarely a dull moment.

But the film contains lots of discontinuous parts.  The most glaring is in the opening sequence when Mesrine’s car is cut off by a truck.  The truck stops and guys disembark with guns aimed at Mesrine.  This scene is never returned to but perhaps in the second film?  There are also parts in the film when Mesrine is executing a crime and the next has him in prison with no shot of how he had gotten caught.  One segment oddly begins in Arizona with a fleet of police cars chasing after Mesrine’s car.

Despite the discontinuity complaint, Richet pays careful attention to period detail.  His creation of the 70’s crime caper look is very much felt in this film.  From the beer stubbies (Canada drank beer from bottles with short necks) to the wardrobe to the difference in French and Quebec accents (joked about too, in the film), the film gets full marks.

I initially previewed this film in 2008 at the Toronto International Film Festival and again recently.  MESRINE took its time to reach North American screens, but the film is definitely worth a look if not for its energetic portray of the life of one sordid criminal but for the grand and unforgettable performance of Vincent Cassel.