The French Connection (1971)

William Friedkin – Director

Ernest Tidyman – Screenplay (based on the book by Robin Moore)

Gene Hackman, Fernando Rey

Not sure why, but I’ve been on kind of a 70’s action movie kick lately. What can you do? But c’mon, let’s be honest, like their style, music, and drug consumption, when it comes to a 70’s action flick, it’s go big or go home. And The French Connection, a true story based on the beginning of the drug explosion into the US, definitely does not disappoint.

Opening onto the mean streets of New York, tough cops Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (Hackman) and Det. Buddy “Cloudy” Russo (Roy Scheider), are just trying to do their part to clean up the city and stay one step ahead of the mobs and the drugs. After a lucky spot at an after duty bar, they walk into the collar of a lifetime, finding themselves in the thick of a massive heroin shipment from France. Trailing them proves difficult as they attempt to keep track of the go-between delivery man, Sal Boca (Tony Lo Bianco), his mob connections, a hapless French celebrity just trying to make a fast buck, and an elderly and distinguished, Alain Chanier (Spanish screen legend Fernando Rey), the kingpin of oversees heroin smuggling. After a series of dramatic chases through the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn, Popeye finally comes face to face with Charnier at a warehouse shootout. Now, I can’t spoil an ending (though it’s a true story so I guess you could just look it up) but it’s one that fiction couldn’t have created any better.

In my days as a moviegoer, I have seen some good car chases. Usually they involve some squealing wheels and perhaps an ignition backfire or two as the car rounds the corner on two wheels. It flies down the highway, snaking at breakneck speed between passing buses, usually filled with awestruck schoolchildren and or elderly tourists taking pictures. Finally, it executes a perfect 180 and continues, without daring to slow, in hot pursuit before squealing to a halt whereupon our hero leaps out, guns blazing, to confront our once dangerous, now obviously and woefully outmatched criminal. Well, The French Connection has all of those factors with the added creative bonus of a camera in the driver’s seat. So as Popeye flies beneath the Brooklyn tracks, occasionally glancing skyward to trace the train carrying the rogue would-be assassin, as does the camera. And not just in a few shots that could be taken individually and edited together, but rather 5, 6 seconds shots showing full sequential blocks and a series of passing buses filled with elderly tourists.

While Hackman and Rey are obviously in their element, and the screenplay creates a perfect narrative of a convoluted and complicated history, the choreography steals the show. Between the epic car chases and shootouts, the on-foot chases are exactly as good, making a virtual ballet out of a shoot ‘em up cop movie. Definitely a guy’s movie, the ladies can definitely appreciate it as well. Plus it won the Best Picture Oscar in 1972, so I'm apparently not the only fan