{"id":4156,"date":"2009-04-16T20:36:15","date_gmt":"2009-04-17T04:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=4156"},"modified":"2009-04-19T14:59:15","modified_gmt":"2009-04-19T22:59:15","slug":"the-french-connection-william-friedkin-1971-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=4156","title":{"rendered":"The French Connection (William Friedkin, 1971): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Byron Potau<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed on DVD.<\/p>\n

\"\"In 1971, director William Friedkin\u2019s Best Picture winner, The French Connection<\/a><\/em>, with its rough edges and desaturated colors, was an excellent example of the kind of gritty filmmaking taking place in the 1970s.\u00a0 One of the earliest buddy cop action films, few imitators afterwards could do it any better than this film.<\/p>\n

The film is adapted from a true story and deals with two New York City narcotics cops, Jimmy \u201cPopeye\u201d Doyle (Gene Hackman), and Buddy \u201cCloudy\u201d Russo (Roy Scheider).\u00a0 When the two cops spot Sal Boca (Tony Li Bianco) in a bar and mark him as suspicious, they follow him home and discover he is part of a huge drug deal that is about to go down.\u00a0 As the cops, with assistance from federal agents, begin following Boca and his associates, they discover that Boca is brokering a deal with big shot laywer Joel Weinstock and a slick, high class French criminal, Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey).<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s centerpiece is a heart-stopping chase scene involving Hackman\u2019s Popeye Doyle in a commandeered Pontiac Le Mans chasing one of Alain Charnier\u2019s henchman, Pierre Nicoli (Marcel Bozzuffi) in an elevated subway train.\u00a0 The action, acting, stunts, and editing are top notch and this scene is still arguably the greatest car chase scene in film history.\u00a0 Aside from this, there are plenty of other exciting scenes including when Charnier, who Popeye refers to as Frog one, manages to ditch Popeye in a subway station in a wonderful cat and mouse sequence, and smugly waves goodbye as the train passes with Popeye left on the platform.\u00a0 The acting is uniformly excellent, with Hackman giving a warts and all portrayal of the flawed and coarse\u00a0Popeye Doyle, who drinks a little too hard and has some trouble controlling his anger, but is nonetheless a dedicated cop.\u00a0 Where Hackman\u2019s Doyle is rough, Fernando Rey\u2019s Alain is polished.\u00a0 In this underrated performance, Rey gives his character a much needed charm, strolling the city streets with his umbrella on his arm, carefree, while all the time aware he is being followed.\u00a0 He is the antithesis of Hackman\u2019s bullying cop and we cannot help but find him appealing. Friedkin’s direction and Owen Roizman’s cinematography, along with Don Ellis\u2019s brassy blaring musical score, give the film a raw and dirty look and sound that help the film\u2019s realistic, down in the streets feel.\u00a0 The film is a classic of its kind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Byron Potau.\u00a0 Viewed on DVD. In 1971, director William Friedkin\u2019s Best Picture winner, The French Connection, with its rough edges and desaturated colors, was an excellent example of the kind of gritty filmmaking taking place in the 1970s.\u00a0 One of the earliest buddy cop action films, few imitators afterwards could do it any […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvd","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}