No-Frills French Action
I’m a huge fan of Jean-Francois Richet‘s two part Mesrine crime epic, the first part of which, Killer Instinct, opens today. (Part 2, called Public Enemy #1, opens on September 3.) It’s not a great film — just a lean, well-honed and fast-moving one. Never bores, awfully hard to resist. Largely because of the rascally confidence that Vincent Cassel brings to his lead performance. Locomotive energy and brash charm = contact high.
Legendary French criminal Jacques Mesrine (i.e., “Mayreen“) was some kind of raging ego-fiend, but Cassell can’t help but make him half-likable or at least oddly fascinating. He never quite turns you off. Cassel is playing the most charismatic bad guy since — no exaggeration — Al Pacino‘s Tony Montana. Easily one of the strongest male performances of the year.
I have a feeling, incidentally, that this flick is going to go over big with gay guys. I was talking to a gay critic after seeing Part 1, and one of the things he said is that he’d like get fucked by Mesrine, or Cassel’s version rather. We all looked at the sidewalk when he said this, but still….that’s magnetism!
Abdel Raouf Dafri‘s script is adapted from Mesrine’s autobiographical novel, called “Killer Instinct.”
The two-parter isn’t a great film because it’s mainly just a character study of a stone sociopath delivered in a series of episodes, one after another after another in which this happens and that happens and this and that, and it just keeps going on for years and years, from France to Canada to the U.S. and back to France. And it’s a kick to watch but all it “says” in the end is (a) this guy is charmingly nuts, (b) he’s ballsy as hell, (c) he can’t see any further than his own hunger for big bags of money and pretty girls and media-reputation-burnishing, and (d) he’s virile and relentless and has a great smile.
But what I really love about these two films is the way Richet handles the action, which is to say with a kind of analog ’70s attitude — fast and ferocious and quickly cut but without any of the crap techniques and influences that so many American directors have bought into. Richet directs action like he’s never heard of Hong Kong action films of the ’90s, like he couldn’t give two shits about the Pang brothers, like he’s never seen a Tony Scott or a Michael Bay film, like he doesn’t have the first clue what CGI might be. It’s wonderful.
An HE piece called “Genre in a Cage,” which I posted on 7.22, explained that “action films are caught in a trap because all they want to do is top each other, and the only way to do that is to go more cartoon X-treme, and credibility be damned…anti-reality, wilder, more CG-ish or acrobatic in a Cirque de Soleil or Pang brothers fashion, more crazy-ass.
“Very few action thrillers have operated beyond these constrictions and delivered by their own style and criteria. The Matrix, the only honorable film in the Wachowski brothers’ misbegotten trilogy, did this. So did Alfonso Cuaron‘s Children of Men. Ditto the Bourne films by Doug Liman and Paul Greengrass and Phillip Noyce‘s Salt. But for the most part the action genre has become a kind of entrapment — a minimum security prison patrolled by armed guards (i.e., studio executives) in which certain rules have to be followed…or else.”
We can now add the Mesrine films to the list of escapees. I don’t know if it’s possible for an American studio-backed director to make an actioner in the same no-frills fashion that Richet has done, but I don’t think it’s likely. The system demands perverse bullshit in the jibbety-jappity video-game mode, and it’s a relief beyond description to marvel at a film that does it the old-fashioned way — thrillingly and believably, and never calling attention to any audacious sense of style except, welcomely, a lack of one. More of this, please.
It dishonors the other films mentioned to put Salt in the same category. It also dishonors Salt’s more modest aspirations.
Speaking of no-frills action, is there any word yet about The American? Damned thing opens in 5 days and I haven’t seen any reaction to it at all. I mean, what is it even trying to be? Is it an art-house meditation on being an assassin? It has all the hallmarks of a generic action flick – hitman, one last job, falls in love, crisis of conscience, older mentor figure – and it’s opening at the Ziegfeld here in NYC, so that would suggest some mainstream appeal but then there’s minimal advertising other than a lot of subway posters. Nothing adds up. I’m baffled. Anyone?
Couldn’t agree with you more, Mr. Wells. Saw both parts as a double bill in a London cinema last year and recently caught it again on HBO Europe.
It’s a brutal, bloody and grimly rivetting gangster movie and the charismatic Cassell (Mr. Monica Bellucci) carries it effortlessly. The chaotic (CGI-less) shoot-em-out sequence where Mesrine and his partner break out of the Canadian prison then, audaciously, return the next day to break out some fellow inmates is a bravura piece of filmmaking. The French really have a knack for these kind of thrillers. Hollywood doesn’t (and won’t) make-em like that anymore, that’s for sure. Interestingly enough, part 2 was shot first thereby allowing the beefed-up Cassell to return to his normal weight for part 1.
Am I the only one who finds it strange that Wells name-checks the Pang brothers as though they are the epitome of (or even symbolic of) the kind of trashy action style he’s referring to?
Okay, I’ll bite — who’s worse?
Totally agree – I’ve seen both and they are outstanding and totally gripping.
Incidentally the second film is Public Enemy #1..Pubic Enemy sounds like a film about herpes.
Cassel is fucking ace. CASSEL POWER. If his accent wasn’t so strong he’d be a big star in the US. Exactly the kind of old-school man’s man that doesn’t really exist anymore in Hollywood.
Also, he gets to bang Bellucci any time he wants. Bellucci and Diane Lane are the ultimate milfs, and are both squired by excellent actors.
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I remember the original cage discussion here, but I totally missed its relation to this movie, which I’m hearing of the first time today.
Looks great, can’t wait to see it, the GF will be ridiculously enthusiastic (she’s loved Cassel ever since he did that folded-over yoga thing in Ocean’s 12… which I see Clooney trying out in The American, heh).
That said… I hate hate HATE the people who cut foreign film trailers for American audiences. The oldest trick in the book is to hide all the foreign dialogue by having no dialogue… of course, in 2010, everyone knows this is the trick, so they immediately recognize the film as a foreign film. Which then gets people of moderate-to-high sophistication riled up, as they just realize the trailer tried to pull a fast one on them– the filthy filmmakers had their chance to make a first impression on the audience, and their first choice is to flat-out LIE to the audience.
Dunno why I take that so personally, but it’s a huge peeve of mine. You’re not an American movie, fucking own it.
(Reminds me of the old SNL presidential debate sketch with Dan Aykroyd’s Bob Dole berating Pierre “Pete” DuPont for going by Pete instead of Pierre…)
I’m in…..the trailer rocks….bad to the bone music….and as Eloi states most clearly ”Cassel is fucking ace”.
You called this one Jeff.
@ Jeff Wells,
I assume the “I’ll bite” was directed at me so… the Pang brothers made Bangkok Dangerous, which contains some elements of the anti-reality, crazy-ass style you’re referring to, although they’ve mostly made horror films like The Eye, which don’t really qualify. So while their names are fun to say, they aren’t even close to the best example of what you’re referring to here. Off the top of my head, Neveldine and Taylor would be much more appropriate (and accurate), even though I loved their anti-reality crazy-ass style in the first Crank.
“I have a feeling, incidentally, that this flick is going to go over big with gay guys. I was talking to a gay critic after seeing Part 1, and one of the things he said is that he’d like get fucked by Mesrine, or Cassel’s version rather. We all looked at the sidewalk when he said this, but still….that’s magnetism!”
Great paragraph, classic Wells.
Yeah, Hoop’s right about the Pang brothers. That reference struck me a little bit out of place, too. You probably need to watch more than just the cursory American output of any of these foreign action auteurs before you clumsily try to classify their “style,” or even their general level of directorial competence.
I can only imagine what you think of Tsui Hark based on his killer one-two U.S. punch of Double Team and Knock Off.
the Pangs aren’t even action auteurs, which was what Hooper was getting at (the two Bangkok Dangerouseseses are literally 2/3 of their entire action-movie output, The Storm Warriors is the only other thing that could possibly qualify)
and Tsui’s Van Damme flicks were awesome, who cares if they were pretty much the worst thing he’d ever done (at the time)