Product: The French Connection I & II (1975)
Rating: 5.0
Stop Picking Your Feet and Buy This!!!
Billy Friedkin's film is the most influential crime thriller since film noir. Look at the cop shows on TV today. Bocchco and Wolf would be lost without this as a model. It set the tone for Hollywood in the 70's and stands up today with it's great acting, terrific dialogue, and charcter driven action. On a personal level I saw this movie at the ripe age of 9 at a drive-in with my parents. This film was the movie that made me fall in love with movies. For that I am forever grateful to Friedkin, D'Antoini, Hackman and Company.The bonuses on this DVD package are terrific. Mark Kermode's BBC documentary is as good as the one he did on "The Exorcist" and Friedkin's commentary on the film itself is informative and entertaining. The lost scenes are interesting if you're a fan of the film and a fan of Friedkin the director.It is instructive to watch an extended scene, such as the one in the hotel lobby, that lasts 2 or 3 minutes on film in the outtake last only a few seconds in the finished film, yet all the information that is communicated in the longer scene is in the finished product without stopping the pacing and it allows the audience to fill in the blanks. Even while being pushed along on a viseral high the audience is using their heads. I always felt this was Friedkin's strentgh as a filmmaker, telling a lot of information visually and quickly, even if the audience doesn't catch on at first.This package also contains John Frankenheimers underrated sequel that isn't based on fact put is purely a fictional account of Popeye Doyle in France. Frankenheimers commentary is also worth listening to as he speaks of his admiration for the first film and desire to stay loyal to the style Friedkin developed(what urban crime film of the 70s didn't?). It also contains Hackman extending his performance of Doyle brillantly and it finds a way to end the film in a way that rivals the ambiguous descent into madness that ended "The FRENCH CONNETION" only it goes in the opposite direction, shocking, startling and definite.A great package, one masterpiece and one four-star underrated gem. And at a great price