No Way To Make A Living » criminal http://nowaytomakealiving.net is a sociological space about work, generating discussion and exchange on what work, paid or unpaid, is like in today’s world Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:55:47 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Mesrine: the career of a killer http://nowaytomakealiving.net/post/578 http://nowaytomakealiving.net/post/578#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:42:20 +0000 Lynne Pettinger http://nowaytomakealiving.net/?p=578 Dawn and I recently watched Mesrine: Killer Instinct and Mesrine: Public Enemy Number 1, a semi-fictionalised account of the life of Jacques Mesrine, France’s most famous bank robber. Apart from a brief period working in an architect’s practice, Mesrine (played by Vincent Cassel) made a living from illegal activities. A professional criminal has to do more than rob one bank, kill one thug. He must commit to the life, wear the bullet scars and break out of the prisons that try to contain him. Dick Hobbs says a professional criminal isn’t one who works full time as a criminal, but one who accesses a criminal knowledge base and infrastructure to faciliate their work (2006: 421). Mesrine does all this. In Killer Instinct, Guido (Gérard Depardieu) is the gangster boss who trains Mesrine and inculcates him into the professional code. This code is illustrated most notably when Mesrine returns to the Canadian jail he escaped from, to spring the other inhabitants. It’s all very exciting.

mesrine and guido

But during Public Enemy Number 1, despite several more robberies, shootings, a kidnapping and prison escapes, I did start to shift in my seat, yawning. It turns out the mid-life career of a professional bank robber is only little more exciting than the mid-life career of the professional bank clerk. The routinisation of Mesrine’s criminal life serves as warning against crime, not because of the danger, but because of the tedium.

References

  1. Hobbs, D. (2006) ‘The Nature and Representation of Organised Crime in the United Kingdom’ in Fijnaut, C. and Paoli, L. Organised Crime in Europe: concepts, patterns and control policies in the European Union and beyond. Springer.
]]> http://nowaytomakealiving.net/post/578/feed 0