The French Connection (Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider)
The French Connection was a runaway hit in 1971. It won both the Golden Globes and the Oscars for Best Actor (Gene Hackman), Best Director (William Friedkin) and Best Picture. It spawned a sequel four years later. Many cite the infamous car-and-subway scene as one of the best action sequences ever. Others label it a classic motion picture. Yet there is something undefinable that has dulled the film and its intensity. Perhaps it is the fact that there is very little character development and an unsatisfactory, thin story underneath.
It's appropriate that the movie is about drugs, because its overall look plays much like a side effect or a symptom of narcotics. The camera spins and pants in short heaves, cutting in rapid succession from shot to shot with a short attention span. The scenery is washed out and junkie-coloured, dingy and resigned. Unfortunately, like a drug, when the movie is on an "up", it is enjoyable and thrilling; when it is "down", it causes considerable discomfort and essentially suffers. Playing like a documentary, or perhaps an episode of NYPD Blue on uppers, the final third of the movie is the best part because finally the manic techniques that are used throughout are finally effective via the chases and showdowns.
Gene Hackman plays Popeye Doyle, an undercover cop who at first glance seems to be successful at nabbing the bad guys, but in reality has never bagged that mythical big heist. Aside from the fact that his character is intentionally, pathologically unlikable, as the Captain Ahab of the drugs world Hackman himself is good but not great. It's hard to believe how much fuss was made over this performance, because I can definitely see a lot of other actors stepping into the exact same role and doing a fine job. As his partner Cloudy Russo, Roy Scheider at least has a bit more depth, but because he is such a "yes man", his character seems to be on auto pilot. I guess that leaves the drug dealers as the bad guys, but I don't even remember the names of the characters that Fernando Rey, Tony Lo Bianco, Marcel Bozzuffi, and Frédéric de Pasquale play. That doesn't bode well when usually in a movie like this it's just as much fun to root for the bad guys as the good guys.
The French Connection kind of plays like a morality roller coaster, never really deciding where it wants to go or when it wants to end. Since it's based on the true story of a pair of New York City cops and their big seizure in 1962, I suppose it's accurate with respect to what happened in real life, but it doesn't make for very inviting filmmaking. At its worst, it is an extended and vainglorious view of the underbelly of policework; at its best, it is an interesting cops and robbers chase movie.
