Product: French Connection [VHS] (1971)
Rating: 5.0
French Connection connects with real assets
The French Connection is the touchstone cops'n robbers classic for modern crime dramas like NYPD Blue. Its greatest assets are its moody New York City atmosphere and Gene Hackman's unrelentingly violent tour de force as the maverick NYPD detective Popeye Doyle. Roy Schieder holds his own as Doyle's no nonsense partner. And Tony Lo Bianco and Fernando Rey are good as the drug-pushing heavies (the latter though in a somewhat subdued performance). The best thing about the French Connection is that the action sequences are expertly couched and edited in such a way that they don't detract from the deliberate pacing of the story. The protagonists don't uncover the plot and foil the bad guys in typical Hollywood fashion, making for a rousing, intelligently made thriller that deserved its multi Oscar props.