It’s 40 years since the debut of The French Connection, which made William Friedkin a director and Gene Hackman an actor. It also launched a new generation of Hollywood crime movies, setting the tone for the decade to come. The film earned eight Academy Award nominations, winning five, including Best Picture and Directing.
The French Connection ushered in an age of realism to cop films, something that had never been done before. The film’s claustrophobic stake-outs and street-level surveillance drew from the real-life experiences of FBI agents Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso, while Friedkin’s gritty cinematography and tense, stringy music created a mood that was unlike anything else in American filmmaking at the time.
In an age when Hollywood’s law enforcement films were often too moralistic and melodramatic to be taken seriously, The French Connection and its sequel set a standard that remains today. It was the first movie to focus on the gritty details of smuggling and policing, rather than the big stars and romance.
As a result, The French Connection was an immediate hit that became a model for Hollywood’s war on drugs and inspired a series of imitators. It also established a new, cliched character for policemen that still exists in today’s culture: the cop who leads with his intuition and pisses off other police officers.
There’s a lot that goes into making this such a good movie, but arguably one of its greatest achievements is how much it takes the audience by surprise. Early scenes showing Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) and Cloudy Russo (Roy Scheider) brutalising an innocent man — and then making them appear to be totally unconcerned with the consequences of their actions — really throw the viewer off.
But once you’re past these ominous opening scenes, the action in French Connection hello starts to pick up pace and the film begins to have its fun. The chases that follow are paced so well that they’re not just exciting, but thrilling.
A big part of this is because The French Connection’s camerawork, and the performances of its actors, keep the film moving at a breakneck speed that could only be achieved by letting a single person run at the rate of a jackhammer. It’s this pacing that makes this film so much more than just a simple cop flick.
Another aspect of this pacing is The french connection hello the fact that it doesn’t try to make the action too exciting. It’s a little bit boring with all that waiting around, but the performances and pacing make it work so well that everything gets to go as fast as if you were chasing a subway.
The pacing in French Connection is so good that you’re almost afraid it’s going to end before you’ve even reached the final scene. It doesn’t linger on exposition and jargon, but it quickly gets to the heart of what’s happening, so you can’t help but feel the pulse.
The French Connection has all the elements that a great detective movie needs: a compelling character study, a believable villain and a tense and exciting chase sequence that makes you want to see more of it. It’s the kind of film that you’re going to want to watch again and again if you love crime thrillers.
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