L'instinct de mort (Mesrin: Killer Instinct)
2008
****
Director: Jean-François Richet
Cast: Vincent Cassel, Ludivine Sagnier, Cécile De France, Gérard Depardieu, Gilles Lellouche, Roy Dupuis, Elena Anaya, Florence Thomassin, Abdelhafid Metalsi, Gilbert Sicotte, Michel Duchaussoy, Myriam Boyer
Jean-François Richet's ambitious two-part drama tells the story of Jacques Mesrin (1936-1979), a French criminal who became infamous on two continents in the 1960s and 1970s. He returns from the Algerian War a hardened man and immediately embarks on a life of crime, which includes murders, robberies and kidnappings. In the years that follow, he develops into a cocky and confident thug who is convinced that the cops will never catch him; and if they should, no prison is strong enough to hold him. This gritty and gripping biopic does not attempts to glamourise its hero. Mesrin is an unpleasant but charismatic brute, and wonderfully played by Vincent Cassel. Richet pulls the strings with great confidence and skips seemingly crucial parts of the gangster's life to achieve dynamism, occasionally at the expense of clarity and logic. The story continues in Mesrin: Public Enemy Number One.
