Inspired by the true story of Jacques Mesrine, France’s most notorious gangster with 39 murders to his name.
This scorching 4 hour+ epic (to be released in two parts) charts Mesrine’s journey from disillusioned soldier in Algeria to eponymous Public Enemy No. 1 after a series of prison escapes and increasingly brutal crimes.
From Paris to the US, Canada and Spain this hard-hitting biopic boasts an all-star cast with Vincent Cassel as Mesrine and Depardieu in a particularly creepy role as his early underworld mentor.
The film plays like a French take on De Palma’s Scarface but with a far murkier, more complex, morality.
Mesrine’s background, with his concerned middle-class family begs the question of how French society could have produced such a brutal sociopath. At the same time it questions the role of the French media in romanticising and mythologising the outlaw and neatly overlooking what in the end is a tawdry violent tale of terror and intimidation.
Riveting, compelling viewing which will be one of the must see foreign language films of the summer.