Mesrine: Public Enemy #1

Madman

R4 DVD

French with English subtitles.

This is a dramatisation of the life and crimes of Jacques Mesrine, a French criminal who held the dubious distinction of being France and Canada’s Public Enemy No. 1. It is a massive set at 246 minutes, spread over two DVDs. Because of the length of the show Director Jean-Francois Richet has managed to build up the personality of the man, not just his criminal history.

Mesrine was known at school for his violent attacks on other students. When France was fighting the independence movement in Algeria he joined the Army and the film opens with an example of his brutality towards the Algerian citizens. On his discharge he was left with no career opportunities, so he joined a friend in burglary and bank robbery. Their boss lectured him on the importance of “respect”, both to those higher up than him and from his own subordinates. This seems to have stayed with him all his life and was later to play a part in his downfall.

Meanwhile, though, the bank robbery business was successful and profitable. Too successful. His work attracted the attention of a rival gang and he narrowly missed an assassination attempt. He fled to Canada and branched out from bank robbery to kidnapping when he lost his job. The inevitable happened and he was captured and sentenced to prison in one of Canada’s toughest corrective institutions. Surprisingly he managed to escape but had to return to France.

Once again he went back to bank robbery but his bravado was building up. A successful escape from a courthouse only added to this but his time was running out. He tried to ally himself with terrorist groups in a search for some sort of legitimacy (respect?), but they were distancing themselves and even his long-time friends were becoming wary of his constant taunting of the police and his irrational political rantings. One of his friends pointed out that he seemed to want to destroy the system but they wanted it to survive so they could milk it. His robberies were becoming increasingly violent and often involved running gunfights with the police as they made their escape. With every success his ego grew. So did the body count, estimated at around forty dead.

Mesrine now made it to Public Enemy #1 in France and the police made a concentrated effort to catch him. Realising his life in France was over, he arranged to leave the country again. Could he escape before the police tracked him down?

Mesrine is an unsympathetic character with his bragging and posturing, and like a Shakespearean tragedy hero he carries the makings of his own downfall. One of his major failings is that he seems to believe his own propaganda. Another is that, while he admits the probability that he will be killed by the police, he doesn’t seem to believe that it will really happen. He relies on changes of appearance and extreme caution to keep him safe. Will it be enough? Can he gain the respect that he seems to crave, from the police or the public?

The film is well acted and produced and I didn’t find the subtitles at all intrusive to the flow. The action is almost continuous so be prepared to spend a lot of time on the edge of your seat.

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This review will appear in Volume 3 No. 3 of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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