Mesrine: Killer Instinct

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"Nobody kills me until I say so." Killer Instinct, part one of the two-part biopic of French gangster Jacques Mesrine, is a violent and unpredictable crime thriller that will appeal those who love Michael Mann's matter-of-fact violence those who miss the Scorsese of old. Like Mesrine himself, Killer Instinct is tense, stylish, vicious and unpredictable.

After a lengthy opening sequence that depicts his death in 1979, the action flashes back to Algeria, 1959, where a young Mesrine (Cassel) is involved in the brutal interrogation of a prisoner suspected of a bombing. Discharged from the army, Mesrine moves home to Paris where his best friend Paul (Gilles Lellouche) introduces him to gangster boss Guido (Depardieu). He quickly rises through the ranks, offing anyone who looks at him sideways, and falls for Spanish beauty Sofia (Anaya). After a stint in jail and a short-lived attempt to go straight, Mesrine rejoins the gang, meets Jeanne (de France) and makes for Canada where a bungled kidnapping lands them in prison.

The film follows this episodic path with scenes falling over each other in the race to tell Mesrine's story. Director Richet, on a quest to tell his tale at breakneck speed, leaves scenes out that other directors would deem essential: In a brief ten-minute segment, Mesrine arrives in Canada, gets a job as a chauffeur, kidnaps his millionaire boss, flees to the US, is arrested in Monument Valley, and winds up in prison. The 'hows' and the 'whys' according to Richet aren't important. It's arguable that the film is just a series of set pieces with nothing linking the story together but the title character, but when those sequences executed this coolly and the story this enthralling, who's complaining?

Although not glorifying his subject, Richet is at pains to explain him, feeling that society let him down: the army life hardened him, his firing from his job is testimony that ex-cons can't rejoin society, and his humiliating spell in solitary confinement destroys whatever humanity was left in him. But Richet is smart enough to give the cold killer some heart too: he loves his family and, later, Jeanne.

Front-and-centre for the entire film Cassel is in commanding form, filling out what could have been a one-dimensional psychopath. His Mesrine is caught between the heart of La Haine's Vinz and volatile Kirill from Eastern Promises. De France is almost unrecognisable in a gutsy role for an actress who usually goes for slow-paced, downbeat dramas. The same can't be said of Depardieu, who feels miscast - it's tough to believe him as a cold gangster boss.

Part Two - Public Enemy No. 1 - promises to up the body count ten fold. Roll on 28th August.