The French Connection

 

Today we're looking at The French Connection (1971).

This film has been high on my list of classics that I really want to watch, so I did. I was inspired to do this after an old friend did and gave it a good review.

What we have here is a pretty straight cop movie. It's tagged Action, Crime, Drama on IMDB, which is correct. It stars Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider as the two central NYPD detectives and Fernando Rey as the French drug smuggler.

It's directed by William Friedkin who is perhaps best known for directing The Exorcist two years later, and it shows. The French Connection has many scenes what felt like The Exorcist in tone and color, though there are no demon possessed girls here.

The French Connection is one of those movies that have seeped into media on multiple levels. I had never seen it before, but there were scenes that I have seen parodied elsewhere, like the subway chase being lampooned in The Simpsons episode Sex, Pies and Idiot Scrapes. I also got the feeling I was watching a kind of 70's prototype version of The Wire. I can't point out anything in particular, I just got a strong vibe of it.

I was warned that there is no twist here. Just a Frenchmen who wants to sell a large amount of drugs in New York and the police wants to stop them. This is literally the truth, and it's also based on a true story. It's more about the journey than the destination and you get a lovely tour of New York watching this. The acting is good, that almost goes without saying and the action is excellent. The above mentioned subway chase stands tall even today. It is worth noting that they didn't really have permission to film this highly dangerous scene and it's amazing that no one got hurt.

What surprised me though, was some really jarring plot holes in an otherwise carefully crafted film. Mild Spoilers ahead:

At one point, Hackman goes after a sniper up on the roof of a tall building. From there he sees that the shooter has eluded him and is now sprinting down the street. Somehow, Hackman has time to run some five or six stories down and give chase, and it's a tight chase.

At another point, the cops tear a car apart, and I do mean tear apart. Yet somehow they put everything back together so well that the paranoid owner suspects nothing in what must have been a single afternoon.

These are perhaps the most glaring problems but the script has a couple of similar lesser scenes. Not that they detract from the experience, but it is weird that they exist.

I probably should mention that as this was filmed in 1971, social norms were a bit different. Hackman drops the N-word very early on and it's not the only racial slur either. Apparently he initially refused to say that line, but when he found out that the real person his character was based on talked like this, he relented.

Do I recommend The French Connection? Yes I do, but not for everyone. It is slow, really slow at times. If you get bored easily, this is not the movie for you. Otherwise it is an excellent slice of New York in the early 1970's.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!