3 out of 5

Director: Jean-François Richet

The ‘most helpful review’ on Netflix (as of July 2011, starting with “Public Enemy No. 1 starts like part one…”) is truly the most helpful review. I suggest you read that.

…You… you’re still here? I’m flattered, but… well, okay, you want to hear my opinion after all, you silly little dedicated beast, then I shan’t deny you. Mesrine is a compelling character. Certainly compelling enough to merit two films. And while director Jean-Francois Richet did his subject a conceptual service by splitting the two films down a thematic line, it does encourage the viewer to compare, and as such part 1 ends up being much more affecting. Part 2 starts the same – showing Mesrine’s demise in a police execution – but what follows couldn’t be more different from the dissected persona from film 1. Part 2 plays like a more typical gangster film, with exciting and long shootouts and heists, bursts of violence, a charming lead (still excellently and wildly played by Cassel). Mesrine, in France, was a very public figure (you saw part 1, right? I don’t need to explain who Mesrine was…) and instead of leaving us breathless with the intense ride to fame, Public Enemy #1 shows us the downward slide, how over exposure leads to ridiculousness, to narrow-mindedness, to more extremes. It’s not an unfascinating view, but it becomes an old dog’s same trick, and this time around we know the death is part of the film and not just the intro. If you can, watch all of this together. There are nice parallels when the film is taken as a whole, and the immediate comparison makes this figure much more tragic. But watched separately, spread out, with the intensity of film 1 in your rearview, part 2 feels like one or two long extended sequences instead of a movie proper. Still a worthwhile watch.