The infamous French gangster Jacques Mesrine's life can be summarized in the first scene of the film, which acts as a window into the complicated, violent, and principled man: Mesrine is serving for in the armed forces in Algeria in 1959. While interrogating a suspect, the man's sister is brought in and he still remains uncooperative. Mesrine is instructed by his senior officer to shoot the sister, but he instead turns the gun on the man being questioned. From then on Mesrine returns home to Paris to live with his loving parents. After working a while at a respectable job, he is introduced into a flashy life of crime by his friend and soon takes it up entirely, working for a mob boss and pulling burglaries and robberies. Soon, he is forced to leave the country and is picked up and sentenced to prison in Canada, where he is forced to follow through on his word that "no prison can hold Jacques Mesrine." Mesrine: Killer Instinct is a rollicking gangster picture and an acting showcase for Vincent Cassel. Mesrine's exploits are simultaneously exciting and off putting and is made all the more perplexing due to the fact that Mesrine himself actually wrote this less then flattering account. In addition to Cassel's stellar work there is also a fine performance by the great French actor Gerard Depardieu. Killer Instinct is a fine entry to the gangster genre, a genre which seems to have been lacking lately and I look forward to the second half of this story.
