7.6 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Mesrine: Killer Instinct introduces us to Jacques Mesrine (Vincent Cassel), a loyal son and dedicated soldier back home and living with his parents after serving in the Algerian War. Soon he is seduced by the neon glamour of sixties Paris and the easy money it presents. Mentored by Guido (Gerald Depardieu) Mesrine turns his back on middle class law-abiding and soon moves swiftly up the criminal ladder. After pulling off an audacious heist he and his lover Jeanne (Cecile de France) flee to Canada where the opportunity of one big payout lures him out of hiding and propels his towards international notoriety.
Starring: Vincent Cassel, Cécile De France, Gérard Depardieu, Roy Dupuis, Gilles LeloucheCrime | 100% |
Drama | 96% |
Foreign | 78% |
Biography | 46% |
Action | Insignificant |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.34:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
French: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
The French are often called a nation of lovers, not fighters, and France’s seeming genetic propensity to surrender in wartime is something of an iconic joke. (How many people does it take to defend Paris? No one knows.) And so isn’t it rather odd that France has become the leading European purveyor of the gangster film, that tough as nails genre where antihero bad guys dispatch their nemeses with barely the blink of an eye, all the while storming their way through torrid romances without a—well—Gallic sense of propriety and the proper way to treat a woman. If France came into its own filmic crime wave in the 1950’s courtesy of expatriate Jules Dassin (Rififi), and the epochal releases of France’s nascent New Wave boys, Jean-Luc Godard (À bout de soufflé [Breathless]) and Francois Truffaut (Tirez sur le pianiste [Shoot the Piano Player]), there are a plethora of great French gangster films that make that country seem like a refuge for every petty criminal and indeed major bad guy to come down the pike. One of the latest entries in this French crime spree is the fascinating two-part film Mesrine, based (albeit sometimes rather loosely, as the film’s textual prelude avers) on the real life exploits of a French criminal mastermind who due to his propensity for expert disguises, stole (what would you expect?) Lon Chaney’s soubriquet and became known as “the man of a thousand faces.” Highlighted by a viscerally glowering, incredibly intense performance by Vincent Cassel, an actor who manages to purvey his feral, rat faced demeanor into one propulsive performance after another, the first part of Mesrine, subtitled Killer Instinct, is a frightening roller coaster ride where the viewer is on a decidedly vicious thrill ride with an obvious sociopath.
Mesrine: Killer Instinct has finally arrived in a U.S. release from Music Box with an AVC encoded 1080p image in 2.34:1. My colleague Svet Atanasov has been less than impressed with some of the foreign releases Mesrine has been granted on Blu-ray thus far. I haven't seen those Blu-rays, but this new release features a startlingly crisp and colorful image that offers excellent fine detail and gorgeous saturation. Richet casts this film in a lot of greens and blues, and those colors bristle with life and vibrancy throughout this presentation. The Algerian sequence is processed and filtered and therefore has an abundantly grainy, overblown contrast look which is completely intentional. The rest of the film looks brilliantly sharp and well defined, and the only artifact of any import was a moment of shimmer and aliasing on the side of building during a tracking shot.
Mesrine: Killer Instinct is granted two very fine lossless tracks, one in English and one in the original French, delivered courtesy of a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix. I opted for the original French language track, though I spot-checked large segments of the film with the English track. The English dub is actually surprisingly well handled and it's one of the few times I can say with very little reservation that if you don't like reading subtitles, you'll probably be very pleasantly surprised by the English track. One really interesting thing which is quite noticeable is that the foley effects are mixed much higher in the English track than in the French. Listen to the dinner scene with Mesrine and his parents shortly after his return from Algeria for a good example. The clicking and clanging of the silverware is noticeably louder on the English track. All of this said, the French track is one incredibly robust piece of sonic design, completely evident from the first blistering bass notes that underscore the opening split-screen sequence. In fact the low end of this track is incredibly impressive. There's really good use of the rear and side channels throughout this track, including several bombastic shootout scenes where bullets zing in multiple directions simultaneously. Dialogue and effects are very well mixed and fidelity is excellent throughout both of these well modulated tracks.
Unfortunately this new Music Box release does not include much in the way of supplements, and certainly nothing like some of the previous European releases. In fact the only supplement other than previews of other Music Box titles is the Trailer.
Mesrine: Killer Instinct grabs the viewer by the throat and doesn't let go for the next two hours. There's little moralizing, next to no motive explorations, simply a surface deep look at a killer and criminal who may have in fact been an empty shell to begin with. This is brutal and forceful filmmaking that may not appeal to the easily upset or disturbed, but it features one of the most commanding lead performances in recent memory. Highly recommended.
Part 2 / Mesrine: L'ennemi public n°1
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