"Public Enemy Number 1" is a the second of a two-part biopic about French bank robber Jacques Mesrine. In the first part, we see the young Mesrine arrive home in France from the war in Algeria, somewhat brutalised, and struggling to adapt to cilivilian life. He soon falls in with gangsters, and becomes a professional armed robber - and an especially tough and daring one, with a certain sense of style.
By the time we begin this film, Mesrine has risen to public prominence after repeated arrests and escapes. He is now set in his ways, and doesn't even consider going back to life as a law-abiding citizen. The first film is about what sort of man Mesrine might become, but in the second all that is decided and the main drama is about how his life-long war with the police and the penal system will play out.
As a whole, the Mesrine story is great cinema. The storytelling is slick and fast-paced, and Vincent Cassell is incredibly powerful and engaging in the lead role. Mesrine is a hedonist, a wild-man, even an innocent in some paradoxical way: he follows his desires unflinchingly, and is almost oblivious to the laws and norms of society. He goes close to being an anarchist, a psychopath, and a free-thinker - but he is none of these.
Mesrine is the real-life Rebel Without a Cause. When the socially responsible characters in the film ask him what he's actually rebelling against, he stares back at them defiantly and essentially replies: "What ya got?" But some of the most interesting parts of the film are when Mesrine flirts with various ideologies, attempting to give some reason or definition to what he himself can see is an irrational, chaotic life.
This film is heavier on chase-scenes and shoot-outs than the first, and it probably won't mean much if you haven't already seen Part 1 and been drawn in to the character of Mesrine. But seen together, the Mesrine films are a vivid character-study, and I'd recommend anybody to see them, as long as you can handle a bit of blood.
By the time we begin this film, Mesrine has risen to public prominence after repeated arrests and escapes. He is now set in his ways, and doesn't even consider going back to life as a law-abiding citizen. The first film is about what sort of man Mesrine might become, but in the second all that is decided and the main drama is about how his life-long war with the police and the penal system will play out.
As a whole, the Mesrine story is great cinema. The storytelling is slick and fast-paced, and Vincent Cassell is incredibly powerful and engaging in the lead role. Mesrine is a hedonist, a wild-man, even an innocent in some paradoxical way: he follows his desires unflinchingly, and is almost oblivious to the laws and norms of society. He goes close to being an anarchist, a psychopath, and a free-thinker - but he is none of these.
Mesrine is the real-life Rebel Without a Cause. When the socially responsible characters in the film ask him what he's actually rebelling against, he stares back at them defiantly and essentially replies: "What ya got?" But some of the most interesting parts of the film are when Mesrine flirts with various ideologies, attempting to give some reason or definition to what he himself can see is an irrational, chaotic life.
This film is heavier on chase-scenes and shoot-outs than the first, and it probably won't mean much if you haven't already seen Part 1 and been drawn in to the character of Mesrine. But seen together, the Mesrine films are a vivid character-study, and I'd recommend anybody to see them, as long as you can handle a bit of blood.