The French Connection (1971)

Boring!

This had to be the most boring cop movie I've ever seen. Not only was it boring, but I found myself hoping the bad guys got away. The movie was basically about a racist, sadistic cop who spent the whole movie either beating innocent African Americans or chasing a drug dealing ring. No intersting dialogue at all. The only halfway good part was the car chase scene, but when Doyle almost hit a woman crossing the street, I lost interest in the dynamics because it was so thoughtless. Then, if you weren't sleep by then, you get to watch the police tear up a drug dealer's car for probably 15 minutes. What was really stupid was that they completely ripped the car up, upholstery and all; however, when the owner picked the car up, it was in tip-top shape. I don't know what other movies this one was up against for the Acadamey Awards, but surely one of them was better. May 24, 2008

Brutal as Brooklyn Winter

"The French Connection," (1971) opens: we quickly see Brooklyn, New York, a few days before Christmas. It's brutal: we see a sidewalk Santa shivering at his Salvation Army bucket; a man freezing his touchas off as he works a hot dog cart. Suddenly we realize they're cops surveilling a dive of a bar, as they tear their costumes off and rush inside. So begins a nonstop action thriller, one of the greatest crime dramas/police procedurals of the 1970's; one of Hollywood's most celebrated golden eras. In 1971, it won five Oscars: Best Picture; Best Actor for Gene Hackman; Best Director for William Friedkin (it now appears this movie will be the crowning achievement of his career); Best Writing for Ernest Tidyman, noted black author ("Shaft") who wrote the witty screenplay (Howard Hawks contributed uncredited polish), and Best Editing. The excellent cinematography was by the talented Owen Roizman. Add to that the fact that it was based on a crackerjack novel by well-known thriller writer Robin Moore. And the odd fact that G. David Schine, a New York boy if ever there was one, and a central figure during the 1950's Army-McCarthy hearings, gets a credit as Executive Producer, and you have one flavorful film.

The plot is, of course, pretty well-known; based on a true story of a major 1970's drug bust. New York was then in big trouble, reeling from drug use, an overburdened welfare system, graffiti, crime, and near bankruptcy. Hackman plays the always in overdrive New York City Police Detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle; Roy Scheider plays Det. Buddy "Cloudy" Russo, his partner. Both stars of the true life drama, Eddie Egan and Sonny Grasso, play minor characters in the film; each advised on the picture, and would go on to successful careers, post P.D., as advisers to the entertainment trade on police matters. We see a Bunuel favorite, Fernando Rey as their chief antagonist, smooth Frenchman Alain Charnier; and a Costa-Gravas favorite, Marcel Bozzuffi as Pierre Nicoli, his henchman. And we get the under appreciated Tony Lo Bianco as Sal Boca, hard luck fall guy. For an added fillip, we get a couple of scenes of Philadelphia girl group - always loved them-- the Three Degrees. Plus, of course, we get two of the screen's most memorable sequences: the (elevated) subway/automobile chase, and Nocoli's concluding death on the subway steps.

Most of all, we get what was at the time an absolutely fresh, genuine picture of New York as it then was, as real as a blast of Arctic winter air. We see a lot of its subways; there's even a poster somewhere in a subway car dated "1971." We see the Empire State Building on the horizon a couple of times, and the World Trade Center going up. Lower East Side landmark restaurant Ratner's; Ward's Island; The Westbury, and other luxury hotels and restaurants: Charnier sends a cup of coffee out to Hackman, shivering as he surveills him. Brooklyn has never been better served: Doyle is shown as living in a project there. My neighborhoods, the places I knew best: the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges,the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and its exit ramps, Hicks Street and Court Street,the Brooklyn Heights Promenade with its heart-stopping views of Manhattan as Xanadu, right there on the screen. The classic chase sequence begins at Bay 50th Street, in Bensonhurst. Hackman had a real-life car crash filming the chase, at Stillwell Avenue and 86th Street; it was left in. Friedkin, who was only 32 when he won his Oscar for this movie, has said he utilized documentary techniques to get its edginess; he cut that celebrated car chase to Carlos Santana's hit "Black Magic Woman."

Listen, they just don't make them like this anymore....
May 9, 2008

Oldie but goodie.

The French connection is a superbly cast and directed film from the early 1970s. A hard as nails Gene Hackman cuts his way through all of the back alley dirt, and the facade of a police force gone dirtier on his way to busting one of the biggest heroin rings of all time. The film includes a gut wrenching car chase that rivals Steve McQueen's "Bullet". A must see film, I give it a solid two thumbs up! March 30, 2008

Completely unsatifactory ending!

I have read the other reviews and think that most of the other reviewers are aging hippies that saw this movie in the '70s when it came out. The music was great and imaginative. The stake out scenes were too long.There was probably 30 minutes during stake outs that had maybe 4-5 pages of dialoge. Anyway the ending was typical of the time like "Billy Jack" or Easy Rider". Show the cops in a bad light and let the rotten drug dealer get away. I'm sure it appealed to teenagers back then, but not today where we have 30+ years of hindsight on the drug scene. The mark of a great film is how soon would like to see it again. The answer in this case is never. I would rather get a root canal! February 25, 2008

Solid thriller.

The French Connection (William Friedkin, 1971)

A quarter century after its release and Oscar win for Best Picture, there's renewed debate over whether William Friedkin's The French Connection is really all that and a bag of horse. And, to be fair, maybe there's a need for some historical context here.

1971 was a very, very good year for Ernest Tidyman; he was the singlehanded progenitor of two entire subgenres of film. First his novel Shaft was adapted for film, kicking off the blaxploitation craze, then he got the nod to write the (Oscar-winning) screenplay for The French Connection, which marked the turning point in crime drama from the sanitized, message-based cop flick of the sixties (think In the Heat of the Night for a good example) to the gritty, realistic crime drama of the seventies. While blaxploitation faded out, the tweaks Tidyman made to the crime drama persist to this day.

Many of the criticisms levelled at this movie are, in fact, quite valid. The first half is slow; it's almost all setup and no action. It doesn't help matters much that character development in this movie is a seat-of-the-pants kind of thing, and so we don't get a real handle on our characters for a while. Not liking the first half is completely understandable. But then comes the car chase, and everything falls into place. It's been called the best car chase ever filmed (though legions of Bullitt fans, of course, disagree), and it's all the better for Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) chasing not a car, but a train. He doesn't need to worry about following the train; after all, it's on rails. He just has to beat it to the next stop. And in order to do that, he's got to outmaneuver or destroy anything getting in his way. Nowadays, when car chases are measured against the stick of The Blues Brothers, the car chase here seems pretty old hat. But there's still something thrilling about it. Maybe it's the camera work. Maybe it's the fact that Doyle doesn't get through smelling like roses-- both he and the car get pretty banged up. Or maybe it's the fact that he's chasing a train. Whatever it is, it works. After that, once we've got a sense of the characters, Friedkin has a sense of the pace, and there's some action to be had, the movie takes off. It's a rollercoaster ride form there, and it's a ball of fun.

I'm not a fan of movies where historical context is necessary to appreciate them (viz. recent review of Breathless), but The French Connection, after a slow start, stands on its own. *** ½
December 20, 2007

More reviews at Amazon.com ...