Mesrine: Killer Instinct shoots to cover more than a decade of the life of Jacques Mesrine, as he becomes a famous burglar, bank robber, kidnapper, and prison escapee (who later attempted breaking back into prison to fulfill a promise). If captured correctly, this should be fascinating material. But Richet, in the vein of the recent Public Enemies, really only gives us a series of rushed vignettes through Mesrine's life, and offers very little insight towards the titular character.
Throughout the film, we see repeated examples of Mesrine's strange, but strong moral code, and his romantic and passionate nature. Richet clearly wants us to empathize with Mesrine, but due to his pacing and his decisions of where to allocate time, he largely fails at making the character breathe. For example, in one scene he loses his wedding ring in a poker game. In the next shot, we see him get into a car and ponder the absence of the ring, and what it meant for him. The only problem is, the entire shot lasts less than seven seconds, including the time it took for him to get into the car. To further his redundancy, Richet next shows us the Paris skyline of the next morning, but instead of giving the audience a moment to gather what they just saw, he changes the shot three seconds later, and rushes us through the next scene. Richet attempts to make up for lost time towards the end, by spending more time in the prison sequences, but it's too late. By that point, the film is nearly over and he'd rushed through (and even skipped over) all of the dramatic tension that makes films worth watching.
Normally, a filmmaker would make such pacing decisions to achieve a sort of atmospheric or psychological effect, as seen in Requiem for a Dream, or Tetsuo, the Iron Man. Richet's motivation only seems to be a lack of time, and perhaps effort. On the positive side, the performances are pretty solid all around, and if you get bored during any segment, don't fret it, it'll be over soon.
Throughout the film, we see repeated examples of Mesrine's strange, but strong moral code, and his romantic and passionate nature. Richet clearly wants us to empathize with Mesrine, but due to his pacing and his decisions of where to allocate time, he largely fails at making the character breathe. For example, in one scene he loses his wedding ring in a poker game. In the next shot, we see him get into a car and ponder the absence of the ring, and what it meant for him. The only problem is, the entire shot lasts less than seven seconds, including the time it took for him to get into the car. To further his redundancy, Richet next shows us the Paris skyline of the next morning, but instead of giving the audience a moment to gather what they just saw, he changes the shot three seconds later, and rushes us through the next scene. Richet attempts to make up for lost time towards the end, by spending more time in the prison sequences, but it's too late. By that point, the film is nearly over and he'd rushed through (and even skipped over) all of the dramatic tension that makes films worth watching.
Normally, a filmmaker would make such pacing decisions to achieve a sort of atmospheric or psychological effect, as seen in Requiem for a Dream, or Tetsuo, the Iron Man. Richet's motivation only seems to be a lack of time, and perhaps effort. On the positive side, the performances are pretty solid all around, and if you get bored during any segment, don't fret it, it'll be over soon.