Theatrical Poster for the Mesrine Saga

||This is a review of two-part film, released internationally as The Mesrine Saga. Part 1 was released under the subtitle «L’instinct du mort» (Killer Instinct) and Part 2 was released under the subtitle «L’ennmi publique nº1» (Public Enemy No. 1). For the purposes of this review, I will be considering them as one film.||

Named by the French government in the 1970s as “Public Enemy No. 1″, Jacques Mesrine terrorized and charmed France and Quebec for over a decade. Much of his life remains an enigma, but from history, Mesrine’s autobiography and, of course, a certain amount conjuncture, director Jean-François Richet delved into an ambitious project in the Mesrine Saga.

We join Jacques Mesrine’s life in the early 1960s as he returns from the war in Algeria. Rejecting the typical bourgeois life of his parents, he descends into a life of crime. Cunning, calculating and charming, Mesrine rises quickly in the ranks of the criminal underworld. Over the next two decades, he would become notorious in France and Quebec for everything from bank robberies to kidnappings to no less than four prison breakouts.

Starring French superstar Vincent Cassel as the eponymous protagonist, this two-parter features supporting performances from many of France’s biggest stars. Cassel is mesmerizing in this role, delivering an utter possession of his character worthy of Daniel Day-Lewis or Toshirô Mifune. He creates a character impenetrable to those around him, but he allows just enough subtleties in his performance to let us, the audience, in. The rest of the ensemble cast’s performances range from adequate to incredible. Notable ones to watch out for are Gérard Depardieu’s Guido, Roy Dupuis’s Jean-Paul Mercier (bringing with him that oh-so-wonderfully-incomprehensible Quebecois accent) and Mathieu Amalric’s François Besse.

Richet makes a statement at the beginning of both films that what will follow is not the truth, but an interpretation of the facts that we know about the life of Jacques Mesrine. It may seem redundant to place this at the beginning of a biopic, but when we have such a statement in mind, it is far easier to forgive Richet for taking artistic license with the story of Mesrine. His goal here is clearly to tell a story, not to portray the factual events of history. Mesrine utilises many elements of a traditional biopic, but also retains a distinctive flair of its own. It is a character study, but it never drops its relentless pace; it philosophizes, but it never fails to entertain on the most superficial level – one major advantage of the film’s 200+ minute running time.

Technically, the film is very well made. The cinematography is breathtaking, the music plays off the tension of the narrative appropriately, and the editing is seamless. But what makes the film truly remarkable is its ability to create such an entertaining piece of cinema that manages to be an excellent study of one man’s character at the same time. The action is relentless, and despite the fact that we know exactly how long Mesrine is going to survive and just how he will die (the film begins with a flash forward to his death), there is tension created in finding out how the startling events in this incredible man’s life unfolded.

While the film does not make judgements on Mesrine’s motivations, it does anything but idolize him or glorify his violence. In the first few scenes where we see Mesrine in action, it is easy to sympathise with the charming small-time crook, but when the real Jacques Mesrine comes into play, Richet does not hesitate to show just how much of a bastard he was. We watch him as he beats his wife, as he brutally murders men who slightly offended him, and many more worse things. When a man sticks a knife into another man’s liver, the camera doesn’t cut away. We see it go in, and we see the blood slowly seep out. We see the violence and the terror of Mesrine’s lifestyle plain and simple next to his charm and eloquence.

Mesrine, much in the vein of gangster epics like Scarface, is about the rise and fall of a man. Throughout the film, Mesrine loses his barriers and his code, piece by piece. The film conveys his gradual rise in the underworld and fall into decadence with seamless ease, wrapping it with the action that a notorious gangster’s life entails. Richet cares not why Jacques Mesrine became a criminal, but rather how that criminal evolved into the icon that he was. He explores how one man can become larger than himself, and how that grandiosity comes full circle to affect his own perception of himself. The focus here is not what makes Mesrine a criminal, but what makes him so different from all the other criminals.

Due to its nature and large time frame, Mesrine can seem episodic and repetitive at times, but Richet and Cassel manage to create a strong through-line that makes itself apparent towards the end of the film, especially with the clever framing device of show Mesrine’s death scene three times in three different ways. The four-hour runtime of Mesrine is certainly justified; Richet accomplishes what so many try and fail to do every year in the world of cinema – he takes a true story and turns it into a truly epic saga for the screen.

9/10

Mesrine on Amazon UK

Mesrine on Netflix

[Note: Apologies for the shaky writing in this review; it's taking me some time to get back into the swing of things.]

Ultimamente tenho me interessado bastante em procurar jogos que marcaram minha infância e adolescência. Sites como Mercado Livre e Toda Oferta tem feito a minha felicidade nos últimos meses. Chego a ficar horas procurando bons preços por aí e geralmente o resultado é um bom negócio.

Killer Instinct foi, sem dúvidas, o jogo que o meu SNES mais “rodou” desde que o ganhei em um Natal que não me lembro qual. Encontrei uma certa vendedora do ML que, aparentemente, tinha uma locadora e agora está vendendo todo o catálogo de produtos que já não rendem muito. KI era vendido por míseros R$ 20,00, assim como diversos outros títulos para o console. Óbvio que não deixaria passar. Só é uma pena não ser o cartuçhão preto, mas é original e funciona muito bem. Fazer combos com o Fulgore é algo que todo gamer deveria experimentar um dia.

Mais recentemente, tive a sorte de me deparar com um Perfect Dark, de Nintendo 64, pelo mesmo preço do KI. Também fiquei com o cartucho (que vem na caixa e tudo). Esse ainda não chegou, mas meu N64 já está ligado à TV esperando por ele.

Agora estou em busca de alguns outros jogos mais difíceis de encontrar, como, por exemplo, a versão de PC de Breath of Fire IV. Pelo que eu sei, só o continente europeu recebeu essa versão. Confere? Mesmo assim, ainda tenho esperanças.

Definição

C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!

O C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER! consiste em cortar uma sequência infinita bem no meio, usando qualquer técnica possível. Seu amigo gosta de socar combos de 15 hits? C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER! Seu amigo fica marretando o controle desesperadamente? C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER! Seu amigo só joga com a May Lee? C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER! Tá apanhando pro último Chefão? C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!

O C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER! não possui um grande poder físico, porém os danos psicológicos são gigantescos, deixando o apelão com um trauma pro resto da vida, devido a presenciar seu precioso combo de 99 hits ir por água abaixo, seguido daquela voz de Narrador da Sessão da Tarde gritando histéricamente C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!

	C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER! (info do ficheiro)
	C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!

Um Combo Breaker bem sucedido

Fonte: Desciclopedia (http://desciclo.pedia.ws/wiki/Combo_Breaker)

Huesos sólo huesos, no tengo más que me ayude a defenderme del resto. Tengo la obligación moral de batirme en duelo con todo aquel que me haga frente, y sólo tengo huesos. Recuerdos lejanos cómo de una antigua vida. Rencor a toda una gente que ni si quiera conozco, pero sé que debo acabar con ellos. Hay algo en mi interior que crece, que me dice que ver su sangre esparcida por el suelo saciará mi sed de venganza.

Sólo, estoy sólo. Hace tiempo que no comparto conversaciones con nadie ni siquiera con esos ancestros y me he acostumbrado a que mi voz sea la única que resuene en mi cabeza. Amartillándome con insistencia recordándome que nadie más está conmigo.

Se abre la puerta y veo sigo hacia delante, encuentro al que será mi próximo rival. Un tipo alto, con aspecto de indio, viene hacía mi decidido a asestarme su primer y último golpe. Todo se nubla, en un momento, me doy cuenta que aquello no tiene sentido, ¿qué se supone que estoy haciendo? Matar, destrozar, descuartizar y sin embargo yo sigo sin sentir nada.

Vuelvo a la realidad y delante no hay nada, el guerrero ha desparecido, ya no está frente a mí. Yace en el suelo moribundo, con su cráneo sangrante abierto de par en par. ¿Qué ha pasado? Qué he hecho, cómo lo he hecho, lo único que recuerdo es que el tipo venía hacia mí.

Huesos sólo huesos, no tengo nada más y sin embargo me siento poderoso. Tengo una bestia que crece en mi interior y ésta me dice cómo debo actuar. Dicta cada movimiento, para que sea lo más certero posible y son mortales, cada uno. En la oscuridad, en la espera de una nueva víctima rompo a llorar pero no encuentro lágrimas en mis ojos…un vacío se abre debajo de mi ser cómo recordándome que sólo puedo sentir las ansias de matar. Nada más. No hay tristeza por los caídos pero sin embargo sí hay rencor.

¿Cuándo acabará esta tragedia? ¿Cuándo tocará esto a su fin? No lo sé, pero siempre ha sido así, desde hace años. Tantos que ya no recuerdo mi edad, pero siempre ha sido lo mismo. Un rival, oscuridad y luego sangre. Roja como mis ojos…y es que hace tiempo que no miro con los ojos humanos sino con los de la bestia en la que me he llegado a convertir.

Huesos, sólo huesos, nada más que huesos…y sin embargo no hay miedo…sólo Instinto Asesino.

Spinal

Un saludo, Laocoont

Format: Super NES/Coin-Op Genre: Fighting Released: 1994 Developer: Rare

Killer Instinct was fantastically naff really. The character designs were generally uninspired and the graphics had an odd sheen to them that made it look like everything had been sprayed with cooking oil. On top of this, most of the levels were incredibly murky (possibly in an attempt to make the game seem ‘darker’ and more adult), so the effect was a bit like watching bits of foil leaping about down a well. However, it was enormous fun to play, so that made everything all right.

When the game came out, most gaming magazines trumpeted the fact that it was based on hardware from the long-awaited ‘Ultra 64′ (later rebranded with the decidedly more prosaic name ‘Nintendo 64′ when it was released two years later). As it turned out, this was all complete rubbish, and Killer Instinct actually turned up on the Super NES the next year, which somewhat tarnished its ‘next-generation’ image in my eyes (although it was hugely impressive that they managed to squeeze the whole game onto a SNES cartridge – obviously Rare is staffed by tiny gaming wizards with magic compression wands).

(Incidentally, Killer Instinct emerged at about the same time as Cruis’n USA, another game that was thought to be based on Ultra 64 architecture – unlike Killer Instinct however, Cruis’n USA was entirely bobbins and not really the best of adverts for Nintendo’s new console. Even if it wasn’t actually developed on one. Does that make sense?)

Killer Instinct fought its way into my life when I was going through the teenage phase of hanging around McDonald’s for want of anything better to do. Calendars, the American-style diner next door to MaccyD’s, decided to install a single Killer Instinct arcade machine right in their entrance hall, presumably to keep customers entertained while they were waiting for a table. Not that we ever let the actual customers have a go on it, although thanks to this particular coin-op my friends and I made a substantial contribution to Calendars’ revenue during the summer of ‘95.

The game’s biggest gimmick was its combo system, which went above and beyond the call of duty – if I remember rightly, some characters could even deliver 56 hit combos (which I imagine would have been intensely irritating for the recipient).* My friends and I spent most of that long, hot summer poring over combo lists in the backs of game magazines, desperately trying to make longer and longer combos. I think the best I ever managed was 24.

Looking back, there were probably better things I could have been doing that summer than hanging around in the entrance to a restaurant and memorising complicated lists of button presses. But for the moment they escape me, as all I can think about is laying the smack down on shiny robot knights and Harryhausen-esque skeletons…

Hey, I wonder how much  Killer Instinct goes for on eBay…?

Lewis

*Although from the screenshot above, it looks like an 80 hit combo was possible. Cor, and indeed, blimey.

Por Bruna Torres

Quarta edição da Press Start! galerinha!

Conteúdo:

-Spam!
-Drops!
-Select!
-Play! – Sinta toda a magia da melodias de Kingdom Hearts
Utada Hikaru – Conheça um pouco mais sobre a Diva dos Games
Daily Quest! – Nova sessão na área! MMORPGS levados ao max level
10+ Jogos sem o botão de pulo – Em alguna games vales tudo, menos dar pulinhos
Tectoy, Do Zillion ao Zeebo – Os altos e baixos da empresa do surgimento aos dias atuais
Entrevista: Gisele Henriques – Autora do livro Gamemanida troca uma idéia com a redação
Exposição Gameplay – Itaú Cultural apoia evento sobre games em São Paulo
W-indie – Toda liberdade e criatividade que só os indies oferecem
Retroviews:
-Killer Instinct
-Final Fight 2
-Power Athlete
-Megaman X
Reviews:
-Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
-Fuel
-Patapon
-Persona IV
-Indigo Prophecy (Fahrenheit)
Preview:
-Assassin’s Creed 2
Breeding Games – Temos que Pegá-los!
VS Mode – Qual o melhor? PS3, Xbox360 ou Wii?

Escolham a melhor maneira de ler e se deliciem!

Leia Online
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Megashare
4shared
Megaupload
Zshare

Mundo Games presenta su primer tutorial y es del videojuego Killer Instinct. Aquí encontrarán todos los pasos para convertirse en un experto de este videojuego. Además de los trucos para sacar el máximo poder de cada jugador.

Y no se olviden que el segundo tutorial será de Killer Instinct 2

Con un compañero, decidimos probar el Znes via internet, funcióno de maravillas, el problema era con algunos juegos que por alguna razon (Que desconozco) salia que no se enontraba el fichero remoto… pero bueno no he buscado solucion al tema, pero hemos jugado  Killer Instinct, mortal kombat, y mario kart, publicare las fotos como podemos configurar nuestro servidor, LO QUE ES SUMAMENTE FACIL XD

Paso1 :

Maquina Servidor: abrir el Znes y colocar NetPlay ,  creamos el servidor presionando “Start as server”

Como se muestra en la imagen

Paso2 :

Maquina Cliente:

Vamos a lo mismo, netplay y en el textbox “IP” ingresamos la ip quien creo el servidor, tal como muestra la imagen

Maquina que se conectara a la partida creada

Despues le damos a conectar y listo, se abrira una especie de chat.

Asi se vee una vez conectado en el emulador.

Y cargamos los juegos que queramos, eso es todo, espero que les sirva , saludos, cualquier duda al post.

Znes Descargar AQUI

Juegos de SuperNintendo AQUI (392 juegos a elección.- Gratis)

C-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-combo Breaker!

Quem já jogou Killer Instinct? Quem não conhece, dá uma olhada:

Pobre Thunder, não teve a menor chance contra o Spinal. Isso porque o cara que jogava com Spinal sabia fazer Combo Breaker. Uma coisa foda desse jogo eram os combos que você podia fazer juntando vários comandos de golpes em seguida. Tinham os chamados “combos infinitos”, que não eram infinitos porra nenhuma, mas como gastavam toda a barra de sangue do oponente eram tidos dessa forma. Mas os combos eram animais, sangrentos, pareciam que não teriam fim, e alguns davam a impressão que iam explodir o próprio personagem que fazia o combo de tão fortes e rápidos que eram. Só que por mais foda que fosse o combo, podia ser impedido pelo Combo Breaker [Quebrador de Combo, Duh] e isso virou modinha também. Só que é uma modinha mais usada em fóruns, sites de mensagens, etc, porque depende mais de texto do que de imagens, embora ele tenha gerado boas imagens também. ^^

Imaginem o seguinte, se eu um dia der a louca e resolver fazer brincaderia de orkut aqui no blog. A brincadeira é a seguinte:

O primeiro a postar vai colocar o número um, e então não vai mais poder postar comentários. O segundo logo em seguida dele coloca o número dois, e não pode postar também. E assim por diante. Quem não postou antes, vai postar um número depois do que postou antes dele, até chegar em números exorbitantes. E os leitores dão a louca igual a mim, e seguem cegamente a idéia babaca e absurda de fazer essa brincadeira tosca. XD Até que vem um sacana e posta isso aqui: ▲▲▲▲▲▲

C-c-c-c-combo Breaker! O sujeito acaba de impedir uma sequência de coisas que estavam sendo postadas que tinham similaridades. E é muito legal, imaginem vocês em uma discussão sobre um assunto legal, vamos supor, uma tal briga entre o batman e o super homem. E já tem mais de cinquenta postagens de um monte de argumentos defendendo o batman e outros defendendo o Super. Aí, de repente, vem um e fala “já compararam o Dark Knight com o Return of Superman?”, e de repente até o cara que torcia pro Super concorda que é uma bosta, e todos começam a falar bem do filme do Batman… [C-c-c-combo breaker. XD]

Enfim, entenderam o recado claro. Vejam três das imagens que isso gerou, com devido destaque ao tremendo combo breaker que foi o Presidente Barack Obama. XD

]]> http://hamsternator.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/den-stora-sanningen/ Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:45:34 +0000 hamsternator http://hamsternator.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/den-stora-sanningen/

Så var det dags för något som jag borde ha försökt mig på för länge sedan. Av en händelse så har nu Xboxflickan gjort en lista på vad hon anser vara världens tio bästa spel och ber då lite snällt om att få se hur andras listor skulle se ut.

Då jag tittade runt på olika personers listor så insåg jag snart att det är allt för många som helt enkelt har spelat alldeles för lite för att kunna göra en lista med tillräckligt mycket sanning för att vara relevant. Då jag känner att det är min plikt att utbilda mina få läsare så gott jag kan så utan vidare dröjsmål så kommer här nu… en ordentlig “tio i topp”-lista på världens bästa spel.

10. Killer Instinct Gold
Jag kan redan nu säga att jag inte har med SF3TS någonstans på listan vilket skulle kunna få en del att reagera, men då ska ni komma ihåg att Killer Instinct är det spel som uppfann Combo Breakern och var ett av de få där en ninja, en  varulv,  en cyborg och ett skelett kunde mötas och spöa skiten ur varandra. Att man dessutom kunde göra hur långa combos som helst om man var lite flink i fingrarna gjorde inte saken sämre. Det absolut bästa är dock det faktum att man inte spelade med ronder utan varje spelare hade två livmätare och inget mer vilket gjorde att varje slag gav större påverkan än i något annat Beat ém up.

9. Perfect Dark
Efter Goldeneye så var det många som trodde att det aldrig skulle komma ett bättre fps till konsol. De hade jävligt fel. Perfect Dark gjorde allt som Goldeneye hade gjort innan, men både bättre och sjukt mycket mer. Förutom en hyffsat lång singleplayer kampanj så fick vi en hel del multiplayergodis i form av ett stort antal banor, möjligheten att välja precis alla vapen som skulle finnas på banorna och bottar med olika personligheter och svårighetsgrader. Att varje vapen dessutom hade minst två olika skjutsätt var en mindre revolution. Laptop gun, jag älskar dig fortfarande <3

8. TMNT: Turtles in Time
 När jag växte upp så var det inte en enda unge som inte älskade dessa ninjasköldpaddor. Att de skulle få världens bästa sidoscrollande Beat ém up var inget någon förväntade sig, men det gör oss inte mindre glada att det blev så. Att spöa fotsoldater på löpande band tillsammans med en polare var bland det bästa man kunde göra på helgerna och det fungerar lika väl idag. Det fungerar så pass bra att det nyss fick en remake vid namn TMNT: Re-shelled som tyvärr är gjord efter arkadversionen och inte är alls lika bra som SNES-versionen. Men att det öht har kommit en remake visar dock hur pass  mycket spelare världen över har älskat att spöa fotsoldater och äta pizza.

7. Super Probotector
 Några kommer klaga på att jag väljer att nämna Probotector när originalversionen är Contra III, men det skiter jag i då robotar alltid kommer vara coolare än machokillar. Precis som föregående nominerade så är detta perfekt för att spelas med en polare. Den stora skillnaden är att din polare troligtvis inte kommer att vara till särskilt stor hjälp då han troligtvis inte ägde spelet och därmed var jävligt kass. Den här serien är inte känd för att vara snäll mot nybörjare och detta är inget undantag. Ett skott och du är död… och dö, ja det gör man troligtvis ett par gånger under sin actionfyllda resa. Ett spel för hardcore-publiken som inte är rädd för lite utmaning.

6. StarCraft
Borde inte behöva argumentera särskilt mycket mer än med ett ord… Korea. Att ett spel om tre olika arter som slåss i en sci-fi miljö kunde gå från grymt RTS till en nationalsport beskriver ganska bra hur pass välpolerad den här klassikern är. Själv så får jag medge att jag inte är så fruktansvärt bra på det, men det betyder inte att jag känner ett fint välbehag när mina Zerg intar mina fienders baser och sprider skräck och förstörelse tills inget längre är vid liv.

5. Deus Ex
Kan rollspel och FPS  blandas? Absolut och på plats nummer fem så har vi ett ypperligt bevis för det.  Deus Ex är ett av de få rollspel som spelas från första person men trots det så är inte spelmekaniken så uppmanande till att skjuta allt som rör sig som man är van vid när det gäller FPS. En stor del av spelet går även ut på att prata med folk, smyga förbi vakter och det viktigaste. Att avslöja en jäkligt stor konspiration som har mer än ett slut.

4. PlaneScape: Torment
Det finns ett flertal spel idag där spelaren inte kan förlora pga olika anledningar, men det är inget spel där det har varit lika vettigt som här. I rollen som “the nameless one” så vaknar du upp på ett bårhus samtidigt som en varelse  håller på och utför en obduktion på dig. Spelarens stora mål igenom spelet blir snart att ta reda på varför man inte kan dö, och hur man kan  få ta del av den eviga vilan. Med ett brett persongalleri och en värld som aldrig slutar att fascinera så är PlaneScape: Torment ett spel man gärna återvänder till ett flertal gånger. Jag skulle vilja påstå att med sitt storydrivna gameplay samtidigt som spelarens karaktärsutveckling går att påverka i hög grad gör detta till den perfekta blandningen av V-rpg och J-rpg.

3. Devil May Cry 3
Spelserien som återupplivade actiongenren gjorde en fullträff med sin tredje del. Förutom förbättrad grafik och kontroll så får vi fler vapen, fler attackstilar och stora utmanande bossar. Att spelet dessutom är svårt nog för att bara de skickligaste ska lyckas ta sig till slutet gör att varje bana man tar sig förbi ger en tillfredställelse som de flesta spel bara kan drömma om. Att Dante och Vergil råkar vara de absolut coolaste bröderna i ett spel någonsin är knappast en nackdel i en genre där karaktärerna brukar vara lika djupa som ett flingpaket. Det är många där ute som påstår att Ninja Gaiden eller God of War är den absolut bästa actionserien just nu, men de svaren grundas bara på ren okunnighet. Devil May Cry med sin enkla kontroll som erbjuder många möjligheter till comboattacker samtidigt som rörligheten för att kunna undvika motståndarens attacker är så perfekt balanserad och välutvecklad att de andra serierna bara kan se på och beundra Devil May Cry på avstånd, och Devil May Cry 3 är det absolut bästa beviset för detta.

2. Fallout 2
Har sett ett flertal listor nu som listar Fallout 3 som ett av världens bästa spel, men tar man bort skygglapparna så ser man att Bethesda inte har kommit i närheten av Black Isles mästerverk. Att kunna skapa exakt den typen av karaktär man vill, vare sig det gäller en elitsoldat eller en affärsman med silvertunga så finns möjligheterna där och det är få problem som måste lösas med våld. Fallout 2 innehåller dessutom en stor dos svart humor där man som exempel kan få sitt öra avbitet i en boxningsmatch. Fallout 2 är så pass stort att de flesta inte ens ser hälften som spelet har att erbjuda på sin första genomspelning vilket ger ett extremt högt återspelningsvärde. Om man som spelare tycker om Fallout 3 så gör man sig själv en ordentligt stor otjänst om man inte spelar de två föregångarna då båda dessa klår Bethesdas alster, även om det också är ett bra spel.

1. Super Metroid
Jag trodde att förstaplatsen skulle vara svårare att bestämma, men det tog inte mer än fem sekunder att komma fram till att världens bästa spel helt enkelt är den tredje delen i Metroidsagan. Med en stämning som många spel idag har svårt att nå upp till och en värld som lockar upptäckarglädjen till sitt yttersta. Att bara titelskärmen räcker för att många av oss ska få en skön illning längs ryggraden räcker inte för att beskriva alla de saker som händer på Zebes som är både spännande, otäcka och episka utan att ett enda ord yttras under spelets gång förutom i introt. Den berättelse som spelaren får berättad för sig formas mest inuti spelarens huvud, samtidigt som spelaren springer fram och tillbaka i olika grottor och letar power-ups och besegrar fiender för att slutligen kunna möta moderhjärnan och besegra henne för gott.  För er som inte har spelat Super Metroid men äger en Wii så ber jag er att direkt gå in på Virtual Console och ladda hem Super Metroid. Ni kommer inte bli missnöjda.

Så det var min lista. Den kan förvisso komma att ändras om någon fräschar upp ens minne men för stunden så är det så här det ser ut och det står jag för. Sorry guys men spel som Mafia, Ocarina of Time och Bingolotto var helt enkelt inte tillräckligt bra för att komma in på denna lista. För andra åsikter… varsågod. Inte som att den här listan kommer vara definitiv för all framtid >:3

Killer Instinct presents: a Festival of Shoryukens.

Killer Instinct was the quintessential “cool” game of my generation. It’s one of those games that made me hate my SNES-owning best friend; when ‘begrudgingly’ playing a rival console could no longer be feigned, and enjoyment of a Nintendo-exclusive could no longer be hidden. Rareware forced these situations upon me on a regular basis. Now my internal struggle has long since ended, and I’m free to say what my heart always felt: KI may try too hard, but it’s still pretty cool.

Right out the gate, metal MIDI riffs chug along relentlessly like a crazy train from hell; Quasimodo clobbers the bell with the satisfying ‘chink!’ of his mighty gavel every time you toggle a setting; a garbled, manly voiceover announces your every decision with a foreboding shout-that-is-a-whisper. Killer Instinct makes you feel like a real hardcore sonovabitch.

That’s the menu screen done, now let’s take a look at the actual game. Killer Instinct is the bastard child of Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. Its Mortal Kombat genes are more readily identifiable: the game was co-published by Midway for starters; it uses pre-rendered ‘movie’ sprites for the characters; and ‘No Mercy’ moves take the place of fatalities. The recessive Street Fighter gene is evident in the controls – light, medium, hard punches and kicks – and the moveset. Every second fighter seems to have a Dragon Punch up their sleeve, and if they don’t, you can bet yer ass they’ve got an Hadouken (or both).

SHOOOOO-RYU-KEN!!

Perhaps a latent Capcom fighting gene in the mix manifests itself in the ‘combo’ system, which is all kinds of ridiculous, and sets the bar for future combo-fests like X-Men versus Street Fighter, Marvel Versus Capcom, Capcom Versus SNK, Capcom Versus Larry Flint, and Capcom Versus Every Man And His Dog. It was certainly the first game I had ever played with upwards of 80-hit combos. It’s fairly safe to say, then, that the combo system pretty much defines KI as a fighter and sets it apart from the rest of the riffraff. It’s a pity, then, that I can’t do them. Couldn’t do them then and I still can’t do them now. I have three excuses prepared for this:

1. My USB Saturn controller is still in the mail at the time of writing and I’ve got a deadline to keep here (or at least not stomp all over).
2. This is a game that you really need the manual for. The special moves may be Street Fighter knock-offs but they’re not exactly logical. Glacius’ Dragon Punch uses a kick, for example. And those Mercy Moves aren’t going to just fall from the sky.
3. Even when I have the manual, I’ve never bothered to master anything beyond what’s written in it. Got a combo I can do? Write it in the manual. Super Combo Moves were the best thing that ever happened to this lazy gamer, all wrapped up in a neat little bow.

If you’re into that kind of thing I’m sure love will find a way. Hardcore Voiceover Man will high-five you for your trouble – “Triple Combo!”, “Super Combo!”, “Brutal Combo!”, “Master Combo!”, “Awesome Combo!”, “Hyper Combo!”, “ULLLTRA COMBOOO!!” – a different superlative for each number of hits, it seems.  They want you to do lots of combos, get it?

SHOOOOO-RYU-KEN!!

There’s even a character named Combo. TJ Combo to be exact. That’s where the try-hard factor comes in. The “Teej” is a try-hard, Jago is a try-hard, Fulgore is a try-hard – every second character thinks they’re just so freakin’ cool – like the genetic by-product of a failed marriage between a pop singer and an Hollywood actress. The coolness rubs off to an extent, but the sons and daughters of privilege should never forget their place. Just put down the coke bowl for a second and slip into this gold bikini for me, willya?

Yeah, Killer Instinct, you’re cool, alright? You’re that kid on camp (you know, that kid) with the undercut number one shave that pretends to chew gum all the time as you size up the other kids, spits on the ground as if generally unimpressed with what this planet has to offer, and doles out approval to the rabid underlings that hang on your every word.  Like I said – cool.  But next time you turn your cap backwards and do olleys on your skateboard out the front of school, remember one thing:

Street Fighter got a little drunk at a party one night, looked over at Mortal Kombat across the room, and thought to himself, I’d smash that. And that, son, is how you came to be.

SHOOOOO-RYU-KEN!!

Deftly picking up the narrative from Part 1 without even a recap, this is not a sequel so much as a conclusion of Jacques Mesrine’s life story. Whilst it is strong enough to exist on its own, audiences would be well advised to see this only after watching the first part.

At the start of this chapter, Mesrine is already well established in the French media as a raffish rogue, ennobled to the public by his daring prison escapes, and enjoying the trappings of his notoriety more than the life of crime itself. The opening act sees a capture by the police, the inevitable bold escape from which leads Jacques and the audience on a prolonged road trip as he continues to elude the authorities. Once that journey eventually exhausts his attention, it’s back to high profile kidnaps and courting the media – a path that can lead to no good, and one that ultimately brings the audience inexorably back to the first scene from Part 1, and the last of Mesrine’s life.

Once again, Cassel is on blistering form throughout this, dancing from “Charismatic Media Whore” to “Grotesque Monster” in the blink of an eye, seemingly without qualms about his sometimes absurd metamorphoses, chin-strap beard included.

The film is a bit more Cat-and-Mouse than the former, so we are allowed to spend time with the increasingly frustrated police force, and by the time the credits roll you may find yourself less certain about which side to root for.

It’s refreshing these days to see a biopic follow the full length of a man’s life, rather than just a specific chapter from it, and the combined 2 parts of Mesrine have done that expertly. A rare achievement in itself, hampered in no way by the consistently high production values and acting calibre – miss it at your peril.

The world of gangster movies is well and truly saturated with Hollywood offerings, some great, most generic and gratuitous. Mesrine: Killer Instinctfalls somewhere in between the two.

Following the life of the titular French criminal (who few outside of France and Canada will have heard of) it’s based on his own best-selling account of his life and exploits, putting him in the same category as other self-promoting crims like Charlie ‘Bronson’ Bronson and Mike ‘Chopper’Reid. It opens with an intertitle telling us that no film can truly capture the essence of a single man or the complexity of the human condition, and rams this point home through an effective if self-conscious opening sequence which uses multiple split images of the same action occurring from different angles and with slightly different takes being used in unison. It’s nice that the film reminds us that we’re watching a work of fiction, it’s just a pity that from then on it is shot like most other gangster biopics.

The viewer is treated with a lot of respect since there’s no expositional narration and time passes without the need for overt signposting, we just have to absorb the story and characters from what were shown. After a summer spent watching mindless blockbusters roll of the production line this kind of treatment is refreshing if indicative of the film’s French production. It is also rare to see a film which treats a gangster relatively objectively. Though Mesrine perpetrates many acts of violence his existence is never glorified, and the film style removes us from his world enough to permit proper judgement of his character. One thing he has by the bucketload is balls, and there are a couple of preposterous scenes of criminal daring which would be hard to believe were they not based in part on true events. The shoot-outs are handled with a Michael Mann-like flare and there are a couple of brutal scenes which may have you wincing. What slightly trips the film up is that so much happens, and there’s very little time spent lingering on the more formative moments of Mesrine’s life. Though on the other hand this might represent value for money…sort of.

Vincent Cassel is on top form as Mesrine, with his angular face, prominent features and crazed smile lurking beneath a thick moustache. There’s also strong support from Gerard Depardieu amongst others, and the period setting which shifts between the late 50s and early 70s is executed with seamless precision. Since this movie is part one of two I’ll have to give it a better going over once the second part’s out in a few weeks, but if you’re looking for an intriguing gangster picture with a lot going on then there’s nothing that’s come close to this for a while.

French gangster movies have, in the past, tended to be unpleasantly brutal, shouty affairs, populated by a rogue’s gallery of vicious hoods and sadistic,
bent cops that, more often than not, leave you wanting a thorough shower afterwards. So while it’s certainly not all roses, Mesrine: Killer Instinct is un plaisir particulier by comparison, coming across as a stylishly-shot period biopic
in the mould of Goodfellas or Scarface, and featuring a central turn from Vincent Cassel that’s both charismatic and callous in equal measures.

Until now, Jacques Mesrine would have been scarcely known outside of France and Canada, the countries where he forged his infamy, but throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s he cut a relentless, bloody swathe on both sides of the Atlantic until his death in 1979, gunned down by les flics. Although not perhaps as much of
a folk hero as some of his American counterparts, he was the closest thing Francophones have had to a Dillinger or Jesse James. And Jean-Francois Richet has deemed his story eventful enough to make not one, but two films about him.

Death Instinct is the first, and once we’re past a wonderfully suspenseful multi-camera opening sequence, it starts at the start, with Mesrine’s return home from national service in Algeria with the French Army. Unsurprisingly, the notion of a quiet life in the suburbs with his bossy mother and meek father doesn’t appeal to him, and he quickly hooks up with his old mate Paul (Gilles Lellouche), doing petty burglaries and spending his ill-gotten gains on gambling and women. His natural flair for criminality puts him on the radar of local kingpin Guido (Gerard Depardieu, bigger than ever) who brings him on board for
higher stakes work, and this early part of the film is pure Scorsese homage,
all sharp tailoring, nightclub entrances, roistering laddishness and back office showdowns, right down to the inadequate husband role he fulfils for the young family he’s sired with Spanish holiday fling Sofia (Elena Anaya).

Following a spell in French chokey and a short-lived go at the straight life, Mesrine debunks to Canada with his new squeeze Jeanne (Cecile De France), and pretty much picks up where he left off. No mere gangster’s moll, Jeanne’s as much into crime as Jacques is, and they’re soon back in trouble after a kidnapping attempt goes awry. Mesrine and a French-Canadian accomplice
(Roy Dupuis) then end up in a Canadian prison whose conditioning techniques – depicted in a fairly harrowing sequence of systematic brutality – make Oz look like a day spa. Mesrine, however, refuses to break, and after coming out the other side of his solitary confinement even colder and meaner than before, breaks out to commit a string of armed robberies – and worse – in Montreal.

Events reach a natural pause with the promise of Part Two – Public Enemy No. 1 – to follow. On the promise of Part One, it can’t come soon enough, and this is largely down to the wonderfully complex performance Cassel offers up.
He’s long since matured from the suburban wild child he essayed in La Haine, and while he still takes his share of hair-trigger nutjob roles, this portrayal of Mesrine is an altogether richer bouillabaisse, sucking in both his fellow characters and we, the audience, with a feral magnetism that can, without warning, turn on a centime into surly disobedience or behind-the-fingers acts
of violence. Yet Richet still feels at pains to show him as a caring father
(if not husband), and as a man as much failed by society as a menace to it.
It’s hard to tell how much of this is poetic licence, but in actual fact it doesn’t really need it: love him or loathe him, you just can’t take your eyes off Jacques Mesrine, and this reviewer for one will be coming back for more.

To a greater or less extent, we are all solipsists.  We live our lives trapped in a prison of pure subjectivity, profoundly alienated not only from the real world but from the subjective experiences of other people.  We assume that people think like us and that the external world is out there for us to perceive and interact with but we don’t know.  Not in the same way that we know whether or not we are thinking or feeling pain.  We infer, we assume, we project, we deduce, but we do not know.  That which is out there is not as real as that which is in here.  We all possess this instinct.  An instinct that has inspired countless philosophical schools from classical scepticism through empiricism and the the socialised idealism of post-modernity.  It also explains why the dominant currency of the humanities is phenomenological; feelings, emotions, beliefs and the self.  To creative people in thrall to the solipsistic instinct, these mental constructs seem far more real and far more accessible than facts about the real world and so they are accorded more importance.  An excellent example of the privileged position of the phenomenological is the form of the autobiography.

Most autobiographies do not try to invoke impersonal forces or neurological causality in their attempts to explain the author’s decisions or apparent personality quirks.  Instead, most autobiographies are stories.  Stories in which the author is the protagonist while the real people they encountered in their life become extras, side-kicks, love-interests and villains.  These are the kinds of stories that we all tell ourselves when we think about our place in the world.

Jean-Francois Richet’s L’Instinct de Mort (2008) is perhaps the most formally honest screen adaptation of an autobiography you are ever likely to see.  The film’s representation of the life of famed French criminal Jacques Mesrine fully embraces the solipsism of both the autobiography and its psychopathic protagonist by showing us a world in which Mesrine is the hero while everyone else is just set dressing.

Film Poster

We first encounter Mesrine (Vincent Cassel) as a young soldier in Algeria.  Sitting in on an interrogation, Mesrine is ordered to shoot a woman in the head in order to get her relatives to talk but Mesrine hesitates before killing one of the male prisoners instead.  The film suggests that this moment might well have opened the flood-gates into a world of violence and bloodshed but I think that the scene’s true importance only becomes evident later on.

Upon returning to France, Mesrine follows a friend and drifts into a life of crime, falling out with his parents in the process.  When asked why he never took up the steady work arranged for him, Mesrine lashes out at his father, accusing him of having collaborated with the Nazis.  His father responds that being pressed into forced labour was hardly collaboration but Mesrine responds by screaming “Why do you think I went to Algeria?”.  This is an odd response for two reasons.  Firstly, it seems bizarre to place acting as an executioner for an occupying colonial army further up the moral pecking order than being forced upon pain of death into working for another occupying army.  Secondly, we saw in the opening scene that Mesrine’s moral commitment to the Algerian War was rather less than full-throated.  For me, this scene is about a man who, when placed under psychological pressure, will latch on to any moral framework that will allow him to have the upper hand.  Real world issues of morality have no bearing upon which narrative Mesrine selects for himself.  The story he tells about himself always puts him in the best possible light.

Killer Instinct is a strangely episodic film.  It is breathlessly paced and undeniably covers a lot of ground, however, what ground it does cover, it mostly skims.  Particularly when it comes to the other people in Mesrine’s life.  For example, Mesrine’s first marriage to Sofia (Elena Ayana) is dealt with in only a few scenes.  Rather than using these scenes to make Sofia a fully-rounded character and a force in Mesrine’s life,  the film uses Sofia as a means of demonstrating Mesrine’s skill at seducing women as well as his capacity for violence when the marriage eventually collapses.  The film uses the same methods in its depiction of Mesrine’s relationship with the ageing gangster Guido (a magnificently decaying Gerard Depardieu).  When the two men meet, they size each other up as they clash wills.  This clash suggests that, while intelligent enough to learn from people with greater experience, Mesrine is a man who plays by his own rules and who has little respect for the institutions he interacts with. In short, just as Sofia serves as a metaphorical place-holder for Mesrine’s interactions with women, the relationship between Mesrine and Guido represents Mesrine’s attitudes towards criminality as a whole. Jacques Mesrine’s friends exist only as reflecting surfaces for the glory and magnificence of Mesrine himself.

Vincent Cassel’s performance in this film has been justifiably praised to the rafters.  Cassel is a perpetually charismatic and skilled actor and he has more than enough charisma to carry off this particular role.  But the reason why this role demands such a charismatic central performance is because the film’s script is at once entirely hollow and utterly solipsistic.  The film’s lack of interest in the world and people around Mesrine is rivalled only by its lack of interest in what made the man tick.  It is a film that perfectly captures the narcissism and emptiness of the psychopath it is portraying.

Film Poster

The film’s most memorable sequences take place in Canada after Mesrine is forced to flee France.  The film represents Canada as a kind of futuristic fascist state.  After deciding with his girlfriend Jeanne (a wonderfully dry Cecile de France) to go straight, Mesrine takes a job as caretaker to a wealthy elderly man.  However, when Jeanne gets into an argument with the old man’s gardener, the pair wind up being sacked.  This leads to a botched kidnapping and Mesrine being sent to prison along with his politically radical friend Mercier (Roy Dupuis).  In prison, Mercier and Mesrine are tortured by the cold-eyed and technocratic warden before being released into the general population where brutally armed guards patrol the fences.  Of course, Mesrine escapes and returns along with Mercier to help break his friends out of prison.  This results in a frankly surreal fire-fight in which Mesrine and Mercier drive up to the prison fence and try to murder all of the guards with machine guns.  This sequence is hugely reminiscent of the ending of Mary Harron’s American Psycho (2000) as both demonstrate their psychopathic protagonists’ capacity for self-mythologising.  It suited Mesrine to portray Canada as a brutal fascist state as it legitimised his crimes there.  The spectacular, over-the-top nature of the attempted prison-break catapults Mesrine from criminal to action hero, a type of person who operates on a different moral plane.

Film Poster

The Canadian section of the film is brilliantly encapsulated by the moment in which Mesrine is captured and put in front of the cameras.  As in Mann’s Public Enemies (2009), the criminal poses, acutely aware of the importance of good PR.  A journalist snaps at his camera-man “record whatever he says”.  Suddenly, Mesrine has a platform.  A means of addressing the world and a world that is willing to listen.  After some thought, Mesrine smiles and says “Vive le Quebec Libre!”.  A cause he has shown no interest in, knowledge of, or commitment to.  It is Mercier’s cause, not his.  However, adopting this slogan as his own has allowed Mesrine to paint himself as some kind of anti-establishment Robin Hood figure.  A revolutionary rather than a brutal criminal.  This is the same fantasy of moral agency that Mesrine brandished at his father at the beginning of the film.  A fantasy that rings no less hollow.

Mesrine : Killer Instinct is a film all about a narcissistic psychopath.  A psychopath whose narcissism is so complete that it verges on the solipsistic.  For Mesrine, the world and the people around him exist in order to serve his ends.  He is the only one who counts.  When he falls out with his parents it is not because he has been caught doing something wrong, it is because he cannot stand living with a collaborator.  The women in his life exist in order to be seduced and expertly made love to.  The men are there to admire him or fight against him.  The moral world aligns itself to whatever Mesrine wishes.  His kidnapping attempt was not a spiteful and greedy attempt at revenge, nor were his bank-robberies grabs for the possessions of others, they were part of an attempt by Mesrine to fight the brutal Canadian state.  Mesrine is a man with no understanding of what drives him.  He cannot grasp that he is a shallow and selfish thug.  But while he cannot change who he is, he can change the world around him in order to make him look better.  Killer Instinct perfectly captures the mind-set of Jacques Mesrine by being just as shallow and brutal as he is.

It all started with another gangster film of the year – Michael Mann’s Public Enemies. I guess I was dazzled by Johnny Depp’s mesmerising eyes and expressions I saw in the trailer. Plus, I still had this vivid memory about Godfather – somehow men in tailored suits, pin-striped double breast, always fascinated me.

No, it wasn’t Johnny Depp. It was Mesrine – Killer Instinct that blew my mind away.

The opening sequence was a blast. It detailed Mesrine’s final moments by employing multiple split screens, a technique dominated cinema’s silent days. The effect of such technique is stunning. It wasted no time getting viewers in the mood.

I wasn’t familiar with Mesrine’s audacious crimes and prison breaks. Gangster films are not my favourite either. I am however always interested in how such a grim and bloody subject can be presented on the screen and how actors/actresses brought the roles to life.

Vincent Kassel looks sinister and even ugly in my standard. His two eyes are way too far from each other, his nose is not straight, and his facial expressions can be quite disturbing. His charisma outshines everyone in this film. Even Gerard Depardieu’s acting appeared rather flimsy. Then, in a sequence of Mesring being tortured in the prison confinement, as a solo actor onsite, Vincent Cassel hardly spoke a word, his groaning, his body language made you realise what a powerful acting can do and what makes a gangster film a master piece, which will no doubt stand the test of the time.

I am looking forward to Mesrine: Public Enemy No.1 at the end of this month.

So Infinity Ward recently released a video showing the unboxing of much anticipated fall release, Call of Duty: Modern Warefare 2. Just when you thought cat helmets were crossing the line, IW goes and includes night vision goggles with its “Prestige Edition” of the game. Fucking night vision goggles.

Seriously, kids these days are so lucky. In my day, we didn’t have fancy high tech pack-ins with our games. Wait! How could I forget the all time classic… a copy of Killer Cuts that came with my SNES copy of Killer Instinct.

Classic.

Inspired by the autobiography of Jacques Mesrine, these films span twenty years in the life of France’s self-styled public enemy number one.

Apparently, Vincent Cassel signed up for the project at an early stage, but as he became unhappy with the direction the script was taking, withdrew. Having replaced director Barbet Schroeder with Jean-François Richet (a man who cites as his inspiration several years spent working in a factory; hot on the tail of his ’success’ with the Assault on Precinct 13 remake), Cassel returned alongside screenwriter Abdel Raouf Dafri. The latter (clearly quite talented, as writer of the original screenplay for Cannes favourite Un Prophèt) was reticent because of the role the Algerian conflict played in Mesrine’s story. However, these three men went on to develop an interpretation of the material of a depth and scale apparently demanding two films.

Part One goes a little something like this. Mesrine (Cassel) returns from military service in Algeria and gradually resolves to embark upon a life of violent crime. There is some kind of interaction with his parents, his mate, his new boss Guido (a phoned-in Gérard Depardieu), a prostitute, a Spanish girl he falls for, impregnates, moves in with, and swiftly forgets; there are robberies, of homes, of banks, of clubs, with loud noises and blood; there is punishment, and escape from prison, repeated escape from prison; followed by exile to Canada with a new wife and partner in crime. Within an hour, it has become frustrating. Half an hour later, boredom sets in. Any depth to L’instinct de Mort, any connections between events which suggest a meaning, must be painstakingly reconstructed from the fragmented pieces. What was supposed to be a commentary on the amorality of ambition, the thin line between fame and infamy, becomes a garbled struggle to squeeze in more than the film can accommodate. I couldn’t wait for Part Two.

In L’ennemi public n°1, Mesrine continues to rob, abduct, evade, get caught, bust out, again and again. Half an hour in, and I’ve given up hope. What is supposed to keep it fresh is his developing obsession with celebrity and writing his own myth, amongst other methods of challenging his valueless and cyclical existence. And there is something of a physical metamorphosis in Cassel, who grows noticeably fatter as time goes on. Supposedly, Richet shot the film in reverse, enabling Cassel to shed rather then put on the pounds. But Mesrine doesn’t seem to change at all, or at least has no chance to demonstrate through character interaction whatever metamorphosis he has undergone. In fact, whatever character development does take place is instantly forgettable in the face of all that misogyny, crime and fancy dress (the evolution of Mesrine’s costumes, wigs and beards is the best indicator for the passage of time). Opportunities to play Mesrine against foils are squandered (and we cycle through many partners-in-crime with varying degrees of forgettability), with the possible exception of François Besse (the splendid Mathieu Amalric). And by the time the inevitable, rehearsed and long-overdue conclusion comes around, who cares about the death of Mesrine? It’s a race to get out the theatre.

Dafri has written an adaptation which, despite occasional and brief flourishes of wit and drama, has become terribly uninteresting, unstructured and undramatic. Scene sequences are so poorly executed that all pace, thematic continuity, and editorial elegance are lost. This creates the strange impression of over a dozen different little films rolled into one. There is the Badlands pastiche, the Hunger-esque prison abuse sequence, the heist movie, and so on. Mesrine seems to be written as though it were a contemporary hyperlink drama, but instead of weaving together multiple plot lines and finding meaning in their comparison and intersection, its stitches cover up gaps in just one story, missing out every opportunity to develop characters through dramatic interaction. Those scenes which ought to add some dimension or other to Jacques Mesrine are neutered and effectively redundant (for evidence, see any scene with his parents or lovers). Perhaps it makes more sense through the cultural background knowledge with which some French audiences may approach the films; perhaps this is like watching a Harry Potter movie without having read the book. It not only fails to generate momentum from personal drama, but also to capitalize on the potential intrigue of the Mesrine myth – all we catch of this central theme are a few snatched headlines and news spots, a brief aside on the publication of his book, and a newspaper interview toward the last act. Where are the followers of his cult?

The adaptation makes it difficult to separate judgements on the treatment and on the subject. This crypto-tautology serves to illustrate the difficulty I may have with assessing these films fairly, given how loathsome Mesrine becomes. It is part of their essence, as is made clear when Jacques Mesrine laughs off the notion that the crimes in his autobiography are accurately chronicled. We are witnessing the creation of his myth within that myth. In an attempt to capture this paradox from the beginning, there is a foreword, roughly translated: “No film can faithfully reproduce the complexity of a human life. To each, his point of view.” Nevertheless, L’ennemi public n°1 depicts Mesrine beyond the remit of his own work, and both films try throughout to let the abhorrent side of the man surface from time to time. Responding to his wife’s threat to call the police while he’s on a job, Mesrine beats her and forces a gun into her mouth before their son. He digs a knife around the insides of an Arab man he has gagged and stripped naked beside a shallow grave. He kidnaps a right-wing journalist who has publicly dismantled the Mesrine myth, makes him strip and beats him to a pulp, settling in for a good torture before being forced to finish him off. All of this, and more, on camera. On the occasions when Dafri and Richet seem to depart from Mesrine’s canon, it is no less difficult to pin down whether it is Mesrine or the film which is at fault. Is the consistent denial of any real substance to the female characters, other than physical and instrumental, an expression of Mesrine’s misogyny (for which his insertion of a pistol into his first wife’s mouth is an excellent symbol), or another fault with the film?

Might there be salvation in the minutae of the performances? Cassel is a tremendous actor who can seem to effortlessly evoke danger and charisma. His talents are almost wasted on a character chopped to pieces by poor composition. For all his immersion in a complex mind with a rich backstory, at no point does the audience have a chance to develop any degree of empathy, let alone sympathy, for Mesrine. And what is the point of all those action set-pieces when no one gives a toss about the characters? And listening to the audience in the interval, no one did. But since these films follow Jacques Mesrine for over 240 minutes, without ever diverting to a subplot, this is no tragedy for the formidable Cassel. It just means that his performance is reduced to a positivist account, a studied exhibition of behaviour with little meaning communicated to the audience. Perhaps Cassel’s Mesrine is supposed to be oddly static (a man who cannot grow, whose motivations are in stasis, caught between vicious pride and anxious self-doubt). Those who really suffer are the extensive and incredibly talented cast of supporting actors who are completely wasted: whether it’s Amalric as the one robber with a personality to counterpoint Mesrine (I’d rather watch a film about Besse); Anne Consigny as the attorney who smuggled pistols into prison to facilitate an escape, but whose lines make this seem entirely implausible; Ludivine Sagnier as a crumpet who doesn’t really get many lines between her initial sweaty, naked conquest and her first beating (at which point we are supposed to give credence to her feelings for Mesrine).

Richet is certainly more of a stylist than an aesthete. Might we find redemption in technique? He makes a series of stylistic choices which are flashy but ineffective. Why, every single time he films beside a car, must we adopt an awkward angle parallel to the side doors? Why split the screen to show several similar shots which add no dimensionality, or as an act-opening bookmark? Why make an already repetitive film worse by replicating the same shot and cut sequences over and over again? Why splice so much irrelevant material into a work already overlong? It comes across as heavy-handed to the point of ham-fistedness. And the violence? The representation of violence in the film, according to the EIFF website, manifests a “cold, brutal realism of which Hollywood can only dream”. But this is a realism which comes straight out of Hollywood: shaky fast-cut camera work for the tediously explosive action “set pieces” having evolved from Saving Private Ryan; graphic, ultra-realistic and technically complex on-screen wounds, stabbings, bludgeonings that could only happen on this scale after A History of Violence and Eastern Promises (although Europe does get a look in, with an incensing torture scene near the end of Part Two that calls to mind the fire-extinguisher attack of Irréversible). As I left the cinema, I heard several people comment on this violence. They seemed to think it was too hard, too real. I think they missed the point. I’d rather have an honest depiction of the trauma inherent to violence. But it needs to have a point: it needs to serve some purpose, even if it’s an aesthetic one; and it is outrageous to use it as a tool of emotional manipulation. The torture and murder of the journalist in the last thirty minutes seemed to be just that: a way of building a horrific down beat to lend Mesrine’s death some kind of resonance, even if it must be a vituperative, vengeful satisfaction of justice. Although a necessary part of Mesrine’s life story, I thought its instrumental presentation crass.

I’ve read comparison to Raging Bull, Once Upon A Time In America, The Godfather: Part II, and Scarface. At times, Jacques Mesrine seems to borrow features from Tony Montana, Michael Corleone, even Kit from Badlands. But these are unfair comparisons, because Jacques Mesrine is in no way as cohesive and developed as any of those criminal characters. A more apt comparable might be found in the recent Der Baader Meinhof Komplex, ironically called to mind by one of Mesrine’s quips. It seemed to suffer from a lot of the same faults. Mesrine is boring, obnoxious, broken. But I know there is the kernel of a good film lurking somewhere. Many passages, taken in isolation, could be part of a much better whole (consider Cassel and Amalric’s journey following the casino heist; the Canadian prison break; the courtroom drama). But these films completely fail to reproduce the complexity of a human life. They are, at best, a catalogue of events. I would put to them, as Amaric’s Besse put to Mesrine: “you are a spinning top, and the worst part is that you don’t even know about it.” Cassel is the one thing preventing it from spinning apart.

Mesrine: L’instinct de Mort // Mesrine: L’ennemi public n°1, Dir. Jean-François Richet, Writ. Abdel Raouf Dafri, Edit. Bill Pankow & Herve Schneid, Star. Vincent Cassel, Cécile De France, Gérard Depardieu & Ludivine Sagnier, Mathieu Amalric, Anne Consigny, etc, Momentum Pictures, France, 2008