Product: French Connection [VHS] (1971)
Rating: 5.0
Many have tried, but none have successfully duplicated it.
I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to the DVD-release of this terrific film. Anyone who appreciates gritty, police dramas such as Hill Street Blues and NYPD can thank director William Friedkin, who set the standard with this movie. Two years later the same director made the stuffy Academy members start taking the Horror genre seriously with his release of The Exorcist. And Friedkin was way ahead of his time with the 1970 gay- themed The Boys in the Band. The man is quite a trendsetter, not to mention a damn fine director.Gene Hackman, one of the finest, most versatile actors around, gives the performance of his career as the impulsive, almost maniacal, Popeye Doyle. Hackman's "balls-out" performance earned him the Academy Award for best actor. Incidentally, it is the tenacity of his character which adds to the rush of the famous car/el-train chase. No one is going to take a pop at this guy and just slink away!And what about the chase-scene? Some, including myself, feel that this is the best one ever on film. Others say it was done better in The Road Warrior; or Bullitt; or Raiders of the Lost Ark; or The Seven-Ups. ( Ronin is mentioned also, but I have never seen it.) These movies all had great chases, but they were shot either in the desert (Road Warrior and Raiders) or largely in the open road (Bullitt and Seven-Ups). In The French Connection, however, the pursuit takes place in a crowded Brooklyn commuter hub. And appropriately so, as the film is all about the grit of the big city. Working within this challenging setting, editor Jerry Greenberg does a tremendous job of maintaining the continuity of a rather lengthy sequence of high-speed events.There is more that can be said about this great movie, but I'll leave it at this: Unlike a previous reviewer, I have no trouble discerning how this film earned its five Oscars.