The French Connection (1971)

The winner of the Oscar for Best Picture of 1971, The French Connection is a very taut, suspenseful movie. It fairly crackles with intensity. I found it to be one of the most compelling movies I'd ever seen. Everything about this movie is first-rate. I'm only sorry that I'd never managed to see it before now.

Two cops, played by Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider, sort of stumble upon a huge drug smuggling operation (with a connection to a French smuggler, as the title suggests), all due to their stake-out of a tiny candy store run by suspected drug dealers. The movie tracks the attempts by the cops to find how the drugs are coming into New York and who is responsible for the shipment. There's an amazing car chase sequence involving the elevated trains of the city (quite a spectacular series of images) and a "tailing" of a suspect that goes on for quite some time, building in intensity as the viewer wonders if the cops can keep up with the suspect. The film also features several "interrogation" sequences, including one in a bar populated by African Americans that results in Scheider's Buddy being beaten up. A lot of what happens is the result of the instincts that Hackman's cop has developed throughout many years in the city, and of course, those same instincts are repeatedly questioned by his superiors. He's been too much of a rebellious part of the force to be trusted fully.

Hackman is amazing, a tough guy cop with an aggression that you can see verging out of control almost all the time. Scheider has the quieter role, certainly, but he acts as fine counterpoint to Hackman's Popeye Doyle. Both men are unusual choices for lead roles--you'd think Hollywood would have kept them forever in supporting or character parts--but they truly shine here.

I won't talk about the final sequence, in case you haven't yet seen the movie. But it's a doozy. All of the movies about cops and dope smugglers and crime-ridden areas owe The French Connection an enormous debt. This is one of the best movies of the 1970s, an era that attempted to bring a sense of realism back to film.