French Connection (Movie Review)

 

In 1971, this gritty, incredibly real film shocked audiences with its brutality and brought a whole new level of realism to police thrillers. Directed by William Friedkin—who would make it impossible to see him as an Oscar-winning lightweight two years later with The Exorcist—French Connection introduced the world to a dirty, real police department going after big drug dealers in modern-day New York City. Gene Hackman stars as the tough, truculent cop who goes after them, and he’s not your typical cop from Hollywood’s golden age of noirs and soft-focus dramas. This is a man who doesn’t believe in the milk of human kindness and who believes that “the ends justify the means.”

The plot, which was taken directly from Robin Moore’s 1969 book about the real-life heroin bust of the same name, involves Marseille drug kingpin Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey) trying to smuggle $32 million worth of narcotics across the Atlantic by hiding it in the rocker panels of an LTD. He tries to outsmart the detectives assigned to the case, but his miscalculations are blown wide open by Popeye Doyle and Buddy Russo (Roy Scheider) in the biggest car chase of all time.

It’s a bloody climax that The french connection attack owes as much to the stuttering, pounding drumming of Don Ellis’s score as it does to the relentless physicality of the chase. The stringy, dissonant music serves as a subtle condemnation of Doyle’s morals while remaining as effective as the shrill, spooky underscore of the film’s other harrowing sequences.

What makes this movie truly unique, however, is the fact that it isn’t a slow-burning character study; it’s an action picture first and foremost, and that’s what makes it so powerful. The action is breathtaking and unrelenting, and it’s no wonder that it won a slew of awards at the time of its release.

It isn’t without its flaws, but if you watch this movie for its pure entertainment value you won’t be disappointed. It’s a landmark in the genre and, along with the superior Bullitt, helped to usher in the era of police procedural movies that continues to this day. It’s the best of its kind, and it deserves its place in the pantheon of classic films alongside other great police thrillers such as The Maltese Falcon and The Godfather. This is a must-see for any fan of classic cinema.