- Jacques Mesrine's (Vincent Cassel) guiding principle in life seems to be: do whatever is crazy enough that nobody would believe you'd ever do it. Sometimes this means robbing two banks on the same day. It can also mean smuggling a gun into a courtroom to take a judge hostage, and then proceeding to deny to the next judge that you ever did such a thing. My favorite example of Mesrine's goofy audaciousness involves writing his memoirs and adding in a few extra murders so that everyone is even more impressed. Don't like what the newspapers are saying about you? Kidnap and torture the reporter. Naturally.
- In fact, the Mesrine of Public Enemy Number One seems more interested in his image than anything else. He constantly watches himself on TV and grants a surprising number of interviews, at least by the standards of a wanted fugitive. Needless to say, these behaviors lead to some pretty tense scenes with Mesrine's practical-minded and painfully humorless accomplice, Besse (Mathieu Amalric). Besse is one of those sensible types who would rather keep a low profile than, to name just a few examples, invite girls over for a party, march into a police station in disguise, or take potshots at a car that's supposed to be delivering ransom money intended for the release of a crotchety old hostage (Georges Wilson).
- Although he and Besse predictably part ways, it isn't long before Mesrine starts palling around with a communist named Charlie Bauer (Gérard Lanvin). One gets the sense that this is simply another in a long line of public relations moves for Mesrine, who would rather have people view him as a violent revolutionary combating the inhumane treatment of prisoners than a guy who steals money to buy cars and jewelry for his girlfriend Sylvia (Ludivine Sagnier). Unfortunately, it is with Bauer that Mesrine makes his biggest marketing blunder, namely the aforementioned near-fatal torturing of a reporter (Alain Fromager). Now the news media has turned against Mesrine, and it's just a matter of time before the much-maligned police commissaire Broussard (Olivier Gourmet) takes matters into his own hands.
- While Mesrine's boldness is always strangely engaging, largely as a result of Vincent Cassel's boundless charisma, the best part of Public Enemy Number One arrives near the end. In a scene that connects up perfectly with the beginning of the first film, Killer Instinct, we again witness Mesrine and Sylvia cautiously departing their apartment just before they are violently ambushed in their car. This time, however, we also catch a behind-the-scenes glimpse of Broussard's police force, all of whom are nervously hiding from a man whose easy smile and paunchiness just don't seem to merit such an extreme response. To be sure, the movies make it clear that Mesrine was a career criminal and murderer who did some absolutely reprehensible things. They also manage to elicit a modicum of sympathy for a man brazen enough to predict that "One day they'll shoot me to death, and it will completely make sense."
