French Connection, The

1971
William Friedkin

8/10 (interesting but not gripping)

I enjoyed this detective story about a real-life drug-running operation originating from Marseilles. It has the best performance by Gene Hackman I’ve ever seen (for which he won the “Academy” award), great documentary-style cinematography that enhances the general “surveillance” feel of the movie, and a great car chase (sometimes called the best ever, but not really better than the one in “Bullitt” from a few years earlier, or “Ronin,” a few decades later). But overall the movie is slow, and you have nobody with whom to sympathize. It certainly wasn’t the Best Picture that year, contrary to what the “Academy” decided. “A Clockwork Orange,” “Harold and Maude,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Bananas,” “Dirty Harry,” “The Last Picture Show,” “Macbeth,” and “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” were all significantly better.

22 June 2010

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