The story of the notorious French gangster Jacques Mesrine, with the focus on his life and death as France's Public Enemy No. 1 in the 1970s.The story of the notorious French gangster Jacques Mesrine, with the focus on his life and death as France's Public Enemy No. 1 in the 1970s.The story of the notorious French gangster Jacques Mesrine, with the focus on his life and death as France's Public Enemy No. 1 in the 1970s.
- Awards
- 7 wins & 16 nominations
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe filming of this and Mesrine: Killer Instinct (2008), which lasted nine straight months, was done in reverse chronological order so that Vincent Cassel could progressively lose the weight he gained in preparation of the role, as Cassel knew he couldn't gain weight while filming.
- GoofsIn the London scene, the production have chosen to play 'London Calling' By The Clash to illustrate Meshrine is in London, problem is, the number wasn't released until 7 December 1979, and the album a week later, at that time Meshrine had been dead for over a month (November 2nd 1979)
- Quotes
La journaliste interview: [Begins interview] Why are you doing this?
Jacques Mesrine: [long pause] Because I don't like laws.
Jacques Mesrine: I don't like the laws and I don't want to be a slave of the alarm clock my whole life.
Jacques Mesrine: I don't want to spend my entire life dreaming. I don't want to always think how I have to work half a year just so I could buy some thing.
La journaliste interview: What do you expect from your life? Recognition? Money?
Jacques Mesrine: [chuckles] What a question! Money, money, money... all of you just keep talking about it, always the same. But I'm completely different.
Jacques Mesrine: What exactly am I doing? I'm looking for the money in the places where they are - in the banks.
[laughs]
La journaliste interview: Regarding the politics, are you on the left or the right?
Jacques Mesrine: [sighs] Neither side. I think politics are a dirty game. It's better to keep the distance from it. I don't trust any politician.
La journaliste interview: Do you consider yourself as a dangerous individual?
Jacques Mesrine: Dangerous... And according to you? I don't know, maybe I'm dangerous. I don't know. Why are you asking?
[laughs]
Jacques Mesrine: Depends to whom. For instance I don't play with cops.
Jacques Mesrine: [pulls out his pistol and poses for the photographer] Shoot it!
Jacques Mesrine: Good photograph, publish it!
Jacques Mesrine: Dangerous... Probably yes. I'm probably dangerous.
La journaliste interview: What kind of old age and death will you have?
Jacques Mesrine: Old age... Honestly, I don't think I'll live that long.
Jacques Mesrine: One day they'll shoot me to death, and it will completely make sense. Natural. After all, for someone who was in prison with maximum security, there are no rules. Like me, I live without rules.
La journaliste interview: Without rules and without hope?
Jacques Mesrine: [does not answer]
La journaliste interview: Do you have any plans?
Jacques Mesrine: I've got a lot of plans. Close the prison with maximum security. I lived there for 5 years. Can you imagine? The whole 5 years! I want all of those who sit there to be freed! I've seen what's going on over there, how they break people, how they destroy them. But our Mr. Minister, Alain Perfite, he doesn't get it yet. I am an excellent shooter and I can kill a few judges.
Jacques Mesrine: [exclaims] Do we need in France gangs of Bordello? Do we need Red Brigades? Let them ask themselves the question. Because if there will be need to go in their neighborhoods to train with Palestinians, I'll go! They can shit their pants!
- ConnectionsFeatured in Gangstars (2009)
As Part 2 begins, the now notorious gangster has made his way back to France. Spectacularly, Mesrine and another accomplice escape by holding up a Compiègne courtroom where he's about to be put on trial, taking the judge hostage on the way out. This segment is told in flashback: the gangster is telling his story to the cops after getting caught. He is subsequently furious to learn that the dictator Pinochet has seized page one of the newspapers by being apprehended, and pushed him out. He immediately demands a typewriter and begins to write his first autobiography, L'Instinct de mort (Death Instinct) to gain more attention.
But we also see Mesrine concealing his now more prominent public identity by assuming a series of disguises. He dresses up as a doctor to visit his dying father in a hospital and say goodbye. ("Why are you here?" his dad asks. "Well," answers Jacky, "all the banks were closed. . .") He not only gives Paris Match an important interview, but (in a sequence of excessive violence) tracks down, tortures and murders right-wing journalist Jacques Dallier (Alain Fromager), who enraged Mesrine by having written a piece for the journal Minute calling him a "dishonorable crook" and claiming he has "betrayed" his associates. And we see Mesrine operating through the medium of his attorney (Anne Consigny, of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and A Christmas Tale), who risks her career by helping him get pistols for yet another of his escapes--one that includes fording a river and passing a police roadblock in a farmer's Peugeot.
This time, he escapes with the reserved, suspicious François Besse (Matthieu Amalric), who, like him, has already escaped from prisons three times before and is treated as a celebrity by prison guards. Besse is a sharp contrast to the flamboyant Mesrine and thinks him foolish and mad, though like everyone else, he respects his courage and audacity. The two men rob the Deauville gambling casino's coffers, posing as inspectors to get in. But before that at Mesrine's instigation they pose as Paris cops checking on the local police headquarter's duty roster, to find out when the station is least well-manned. Besse is uneasy about such bold maneuvers, but even more, questions Mesrine's talking to 'Paris-Match' and claiming he's a revolutionary. But it's the late Seventies, the time of the Aldo Moro kidnapping in Rome.
After hearing about the Red Brigades and the Badder Meinhof, Mesrine tells Besse he wants to attack maximum security prisons, in the same way that he went back and attacked the Guantanamo-like Special Corrections Unit in Quebec. The film tells us the SCU's malpractices were ended as a result of Mesrine's exposure of them after his escape. Meanwhile, he persuades Besse to help him kidnap Henri Lelièvre (Georges Wilson), a millionaire Paris slumlord, for ransom, telling the slumlord he represents the PLO. This is another exploit that doesn't go as planned, but leads to a bold escape.
For a while Mesrine connects with Charles Bauer (Gérard Lanvin), an out-and-out radical, and it's with him that he traps and snuffs the right-wing journalist. Bauer in particular debunks Mesrine's claims of being a revolutionary.
The two-film diptych is bookended with the final police shootout in Paris traffic at the Place de Clignancourt that kills Mesrine with Sylvie Jeanjacquot and her little dog at his side, after he has used the slumlord's money to buy her a lot of diamond jewelry and himself a luxury model brown BMW. This is a convention of the genre--the bookending with a final showdown--but the way it's expanded in the finale of Part Two shows both films' fine sense of detail. Olivier Gourmet, among so many others, excels as Commissioner Broussard, head of the anti-Mesrine unit whose operatives are so terrified when the short, now overweight Mesrine walks by where they're hiding.
'L'ennemi public nº 1' had a November 19, 2008 theatrical release in France. It is part of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema at Lincoln Center, March 2009.
- Chris Knipp
- Feb 23, 2009
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Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official sites
- Languages
- Also known as
- Mesrine Part 2: Public Enemy #1
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- €21,166,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $275,387
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $74,449
- Sep 5, 2010
- Gross worldwide
- $321,353
- Runtime2 hours 13 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1