Tetrady not as good as all the hype

Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

coley130 Killer Instinct, a 2008 film directed by Jean Franccois Richet, is a film that tells the tale of a wild French gangster who, in the beginning, starts out as somewhat of a good gangster. He then slowly become more and more crewel as the movie goes on. I enjoyed that the film was not afraid to show the viewer graphic scenes. Richet shows his audience just how graphic life for Frances most notorious gangster could, and was, for him. This can be seen when Jacques Mesrine not only beats his wife in front of his two colleagues and son but takes it as far as shoving a loaded weapon in her mouth until she realizes that there is nothing she or anyone else can do to stop him. One thing that puzzled me about the film was at the beginning when being help hostage they ask about a bomb, however that is the last we hear of it in the film and the movie continues on as if it never happened. Puzzling. There are a number of ideas expressed in the film. One idea being that if you have trust and faith in yourself, that you can do anything, than anything you set your mind to can be accomplished. And Mesrine lives this life to its fullest. Robbing, stealing, cheating etc. Mesrine shows this a number of times in the film when his partner and he break into a house and tell the owner that they are investigators looking into the homeowners break-in, which was actually him. Another idea that is seen in the movie is that never giving up is way of life for some and not a way of life for others. Continuing to know that you can do anything that you have faith in yourself to do can be accomplished. This is is seen when he breaks out of jail while others stay back and decide not to. The main actor shows courage in persistence in escaping from any trouble he has ever been in. The films director, Jean Franccois Richet, was born and raised in Paris in 1966. Since his start in the film business in 1996 he has directed a number of movies including Ma-6T, All About Love and Assault on Precinct 13. However, Richet is best known for this film and, which won him 6 awards from 12 nominations from all around the globe.

kluseba The two Mesrine movies are easily the best gangster movies of the last years and can without a doubt be described as the French Godfathers even though the two films have not exactly the same class as the legendary masterpieces.The thing that is really interesting about this movie is that it is told after true events and partially based on the autobiography of the French gangster and public enemy number one Jacques Mesrine. The movie makes very clear that one can't develop much sympathy for the character but his radical way of life, his brutal honesty and his strong and dangerous emotions surely create a very addicting, explosive and unique character.The first movie tells his life from his actions during the Algerian War up to his escape from a prison in Quebec.The character is introduced in a very interesting way. One witnesses his first theft, his first murder as well as his first escapes from prison but also how he gets into the crime scene, how he gets to know his second wife and how he gets along as his role as a father of three children with her. Mesrine always chooses the craziest, most radical and often most selfish way to escape from his problems. This movie is not just a gangster saga filled with action and tension but has also an emotional touch of the drama genre and some dark and sarcastic humour.Mesrine is perfectly portrayed by one of the best contemporary actors coming from France which is Vincent Cassel. Roy Dupuis plays the very charismatic Canadian terrorist and Mesrine's âme soeur Jean-Paul Mercier. The French acting crème de la crème appears in this first part of the legacy. Cécile de France plays Mesrine's future girlfriend and partner in crime that finally decides to chose the path of freedom and justice. Gérard Depardieu plays the intelligent gangster boss Guido. Ludivine Sagnier portrays Mesrine's latest girlfriend and excels in her role as a superficial blonde with fixations on a bourgeoisie lifestyle. The acting of this movie is really stunning and every actor plays his or her role close to perfection.The movie also discusses topics such as love, friendship, treason, loyalty, respect and more in a very intense way and how Mesrine feels about it. He is a very extreme personality and some of his actions contradict what he has already done or will do in the future and this shows how fragile this gangster really is.The greatness of this movie does not stop there. The part of the movie when Mesrine is put into a French Canadian prison is very intense. It is not only well filmed with interesting camera positions and cold, touching decorations but reminds me of legendary prison movies such as "Papillon" or "The Shawshank Redemption" and contains some well hidden but intense criticism. Mesrine's escape from prison eventually led to the closure of those inhuman French Canadian prisons and this movie shows us the way of life in this hell in a very intense way. The movie also slightly criticizes the corruptive justice and police in France as well as the way how the medias deal with Mesrine's fate and make an iconic modern Robin Hood out of a dangerous and ignorant gangster that begins to use the medias for his own good and enjoys the show.As you can see, the movie contains many different elements and details that make it a very diversified, intense and still entertaining gangster movie which happens to be one of the best of its kind. If you like "The Godfather", "Once Upon A Time In America", "Papillon" and "The Shawshank Redemption" you should definitely check this masterpiece out. If you happen to like this movie, you should absolutely try to get the German gangster and terrorist movie "Der Baader-Meinhof-Komplex" which is also based on true events and happened at the same time as Mesrine became the public enemy number one in France. The French movie has also some connections to those events as Mesrine talks from time to time about it as you should have noticed.In the end, this movie about an extreme and charismatic character is way more than an excellent gangster movie with some social criticism but a gripping two hours of history class.The only reason why I didn't give the highest possible note is that I would have liked to learn more about the youth of Mesrine. For example, the movie didn't show us his very first wife and how he quit her to go to the Algerian War. It didn't show us how he got honoured by the French government and military for his heroic actions during wartime. It didn't show us how he got caught the first time during a bank theft and how he dealt with it. Those little elements could have made the character even more intense, profound and interesting but a part of that, there is really nothing negative about this amazing movie.

Munin75 "Mesrine: Killer Instinct" is the first movie of a two-part saga on real-life gangster Jacques Mesrine. The second part is called "Mesrine: Public Enemy #1". I saw both of them in the theaters, and was blown away. I didn't know contemporary French cinema could actually make good (and serious) gangster movies. Well now it's done.In real life, Jacques Mesrine is certainly the most famous gangster in France along with Albert Spaggiari whose life and criminal activities are also astonishing, and whose anti-hero Robin-Hood-like status in popular opinion is as strong. Naturally, both of these gangsters' heists and feats have been adapted on screen numerous times, in fairly disappointing movies, but "Mesrine: Killer Instinct" (let's just call it "Mesrine") is to this date the only film about one of these gangsters which truly is good and may actually stand the test of time. I don't think there will be another movie about Mesrine in a while, because it will be hard to top this one.All you need to know about the plot is that it's about a real-life gangster known for his heists and numerous prison escapes, which made him a sort of cult anti-hero. Vincent Cassel as a rebel Mesrine with a strong personality is obviously great, as are all the main actors, who were already famous in francophone cinema and with reason. The movie follows Mesrine's adventures in Algeria, France, Spain, Quebec and the USA, making it a fun ride. It briefly addresses political issues of the Algerian War, Quebec independence and living conditions in federal prisons, making it somewhat of a historical film. The political issue actually culminates in the second part of the saga when Mesrine, in an attempt to glorify his image, tries to justify his actions with political strife, although truthfully he's just a very talented thief. The movie's pace is interesting throughout, and we get to see the first half of a gangster's life unravel as his notoriety gets stronger. I do have one criticism : the movie sometimes skips scenes important to the plot. In one scene he's about to rob a bank, and in the next he's in prison. There are many more examples like this throughout the movie and it's somewhat frustrating. I guess the filmmakers didn't feel it was necessary to show how he was caught, or they didn't have the budget, but I would have preferred 10 minutes more of film for a clearer continuity.Some commentators have accused "Mesrine" of ripping off American gangster films. I personally fail to see how. This movie has a very French feeling to it, it's more raw and realistic, it doesn't rely on a majestic soundtrack, dark cinematography, or mobster stereotypes, the likes of "The Godfather", "The Untouchables", "Goodfellas", "Road to Perdition", "The Departed" or others. I love these American films which are all original in their own way, and "Mesrine"'s approach is just as different as each of these great films. I'd be more willing to compare "Mesrine" with another more recent (and great) French gangster film, "A Prophet", which bears the same typical French or European style.Anyway, "Mesrine: Killer Instinct" is a great gangster film which I recommend to all. I prefer it to it's second part "Mesrine: Public Enemy #1" but one should see both of them.

Richard Burin This is a fast-paced, stylised biopic charting the rise of Jacques Mesrine (Vincent Cassel), the murderer and media manipulator who became France's most wanted man. It begins with a methodical, initially cryptic sequence set in 1979, then flashes back, tracing Mesrine's service in the Algerian War and his relationship with his father, whom he derides as a collaborator, before enquiring: "Do balls skip a generation in this family?" Mesrine is hard to root for, beating women, spouting racist epithets and sticking a loaded revolver in his wife's mouth, while the movie's mid-section follows the crime/punishment film template too rigidly to be truly gripping, but the piece builds to a truly gobsmacking, nerve-shredding climax with a lo-fi prison escape that consists simply of the hero attempting to snip through surrounding fences with wire-cutters. Cassel is absolutely excellent in the lead, carrying the film on his shoulders and compensating for a script that sometimes skimps on its characters' motivations. Gerard Depardieu, as Mesrine's mentor, is a little underused, but adds weight to the supporting cast, his first meeting with Cassel being particularly memorable.