nspired by Jacques Mesrine’s autobiographical book L’instinct de mort – which he wrote in prison shortly before his magnificent final escape – Jean-François Richet’s fast-paced drama charts Mesrine’s rise from a wayward French soldier in Algeria to a bolder and bolder criminal on the streets of Paris. Mesrine’s outlaw odyssey even brought him to Canada, where he fell in with separatist radicals in Quebec. Thirty years after French police gunned him down in a spectacular shootout, his infamy lives on. Equal parts thriller and biopic, Mesrine remains faithful to its central character, a dynamic figure who is by no means a model protagonist. –cineuropa
This film is nearly as mesmerizing, complex, charismatic, yet utterly brutal and uncompromising, as its titular character, Jacques Mesrine. Cassel plays the part beautifully, and the rest of the film tries to keep up. Gorgeous camera work follow great fast-paced scenes and knuckle-whitening action. Overall, a wonderful introduction and ultimately a perfect set up for the next film.
Someone forgot to tell the screenwriters that if you have a completely unlikable protagonist you need to at least make something INTERESTING about him. Vicious characters are only compelling if they have some sort of personality and Cassel's two settings are Stock Gangster and Totally Insane, with nothing in between. No joke, my favorite part of this movie was when they were torturing the shit out of him in prison.
Right up there with Scarface and I mean that. It might be a different country, a different era, maybe even a bit of a different life but the underlying themes are still the same. It's about as epic a gangster film as you can get with very little cliche.
Let's begin this weekly roundup of critical voices on theatrical releases with The Milk of Sorrow, winner of the Berlinale's Golden Bear in