The French Connection
Academy Award × 5·AFI #93·National Film Registry
Rent/Purchase
Tough narcotics detective 'Popeye' Doyle is in hot pursuit of a suave French drug dealer who may be the key to a huge heroin-smuggling operation.
What critics thought
Nearly universally praised on release and ever since, The French Connection earns its reputation as a landmark police thriller through Friedkin's raw, location-drenched direction and Gene Hackman's abrasive, morally uncomfortable performance. The one serious dissenting voice — Pauline Kael — didn't deny that the film works on its own terms, but argued that those terms are purely visceral, built on noise and brutality rather than thought, raising a question that still nags: whether 'it works' is enough when what it is working as is, in her phrase, 'jolts for jocks.'
“It's not what I want not because it fails (it doesn't fail), but because of what it is. It is, I think, what we once feared mass entertainment might become: jolts for jocks. There's nothing in the movie that you enjoy thinking about afterward—nothing especially clever except the timing of the subway-door-and-umbrella sequence. Every other effect of the movie—even the climactic car-versus-runaway-elevated-train chase—is achieved by noise, speed, and brutality.”
Pauline Kael·The New Yorker
“From the moment a street-corner Santa Claus chases a drug pusher thru the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, to the final shootout on deserted Ward's Island, The French Connection is a gutty, flatout thriller, far superior to any caper film of recent vintage.”
Gene Siskel·Chicago Tribune
“an undeniably sensational movie, a fast, tense, explosively vicious little cops-and-robbers enterprise”
Gary Arnold·The Washington Post
“there are times when the film (or at any rate the script) seems to be applauding aspects of his character which are more repulsive than sympathetic. Whereas in The Detective or Bullitt the hero's attention was directed unmistakably towards liberal ends (crooked businessmen, corrupt local officials, etc.) Doyle spends a fair part of his time beating up sullen blacks in alleys and bars.”
David Pirie·The Monthly Film Bulletin
“because it has dropped the romance and starry glamor of Steve McQueen and added a strong sociological concern, The French Connection is even more interesting, thought-provoking and reverberating.”
Charles Champlin·Los Angeles Times
Genres
Action, Crime, Drama
Cast & Crew
DirectorWilliam Friedkin
StarringGene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Fernando Rey, Tony Lo Bianco, Marcel Bozzuffi
ComposerDon Ellis
The French Connection
Academy Award × 5·AFI #93·National Film Registry
Tough narcotics detective 'Popeye' Doyle is in hot pursuit of a suave French drug dealer who may be the key to a huge heroin-smuggling operation.
What critics thought
Nearly universally praised on release and ever since, The French Connection earns its reputation as a landmark police thriller through Friedkin's raw, location-drenched direction and Gene Hackman's abrasive, morally uncomfortable performance. The one serious dissenting voice — Pauline Kael — didn't deny that the film works on its own terms, but argued that those terms are purely visceral, built on noise and brutality rather than thought, raising a question that still nags: whether 'it works' is enough when what it is working as is, in her phrase, 'jolts for jocks.'
“It's not what I want not because it fails (it doesn't fail), but because of what it is. It is, I think, what we once feared mass entertainment might become: jolts for jocks. There's nothing in the movie that you enjoy thinking about afterward—nothing especially clever except the timing of the subway-door-and-umbrella sequence. Every other effect of the movie—even the climactic car-versus-runaway-elevated-train chase—is achieved by noise, speed, and brutality.”
Pauline Kael·The New Yorker
“From the moment a street-corner Santa Claus chases a drug pusher thru the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, to the final shootout on deserted Ward's Island, The French Connection is a gutty, flatout thriller, far superior to any caper film of recent vintage.”
Gene Siskel·Chicago Tribune
“an undeniably sensational movie, a fast, tense, explosively vicious little cops-and-robbers enterprise”
Gary Arnold·The Washington Post
“there are times when the film (or at any rate the script) seems to be applauding aspects of his character which are more repulsive than sympathetic. Whereas in The Detective or Bullitt the hero's attention was directed unmistakably towards liberal ends (crooked businessmen, corrupt local officials, etc.) Doyle spends a fair part of his time beating up sullen blacks in alleys and bars.”
David Pirie·The Monthly Film Bulletin
“because it has dropped the romance and starry glamor of Steve McQueen and added a strong sociological concern, The French Connection is even more interesting, thought-provoking and reverberating.”
Charles Champlin·Los Angeles Times
Genres
Action, Crime, Drama
Cast & Crew
DirectorWilliam Friedkin
StarringGene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Fernando Rey, Tony Lo Bianco, Marcel Bozzuffi
ComposerDon Ellis
Rent/Purchase