Product: French Connection [VHS] (1971)
Rating: 4.0
Solid thriller.
The French Connection (William Friedkin, 1971)A quarter century after its release and Oscar win for Best Picture, there's renewed debate over whether William Friedkin's The French Connection is really all that and a bag of horse. And, to be fair, maybe there's a need for some historical context here.1971 was a very, very good year for Ernest Tidyman; he was the singlehanded progenitor of two entire subgenres of film. First his novel Shaft was adapted for film, kicking off the blaxploitation craze, then he got the nod to write the (Oscar-winning) screenplay for The French Connection, which marked the turning point in crime drama from the sanitized, message-based cop flick of the sixties (think In the Heat of the Night for a good example) to the gritty, realistic crime drama of the seventies. While blaxploitation faded out, the tweaks Tidyman made to the crime drama persist to this day.Many of the criticisms levelled at this movie are, in fact, quite valid. The first half is slow; it's almost all setup and no action. It doesn't help matters much that character development in this movie is a seat-of-the-pants kind of thing, and so we don't get a real handle on our characters for a while. Not liking the first half is completely understandable. But then comes the car chase, and everything falls into place. It's been called the best car chase ever filmed (though legions of Bullitt fans, of course, disagree), and it's all the better for Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) chasing not a car, but a train. He doesn't need to worry about following the train; after all, it's on rails. He just has to beat it to the next stop. And in order to do that, he's got to outmaneuver or destroy anything getting in his way. Nowadays, when car chases are measured against the stick of The Blues Brothers, the car chase here seems pretty old hat. But there's still something thrilling about it. Maybe it's the camera work. Maybe it's the fact that Doyle doesn't get through smelling like roses-- both he and the car get pretty banged up. Or maybe it's the fact that he's chasing a train. Whatever it is, it works. After that, once we've got a sense of the characters, Friedkin has a sense of the pace, and there's some action to be had, the movie takes off. It's a rollercoaster ride form there, and it's a ball of fun.I'm not a fan of movies where historical context is necessary to appreciate them (viz. recent review of Breathless), but The French Connection, after a slow start, stands on its own. ***