Discovering "The French Connection"

It has been a while since I've tackled my list of 'Must See Car Chase Movies'. So I return to it with "The French Connection" staring the young Gene Hackman. Now I am a sucker for 70's crime movies, they deliver a certain feeling that no other decade of movies. From my experiences, they always have this grit and toughness that usually get over stylized in modern day movies. And the best part is that they always accompany a car chase, good or bad. It was part of the strict guidelines that made a crime movie, as important as having an actual crime take place in the movie.


In the mean streets of New York City, two tough cops are hot on the trails of an upcoming heroin shipment into the city from France. Jimmy Doyle (Hackman) might play a bit to rough, so what? He gets the job done. Buddy Russo (Roy Scheider) is the more calm of the two, but he still doesn't play by the rules. And sometimes you need to break a few rules when you're chasing Sal Boca (Tony Lo Bianco), the only lead in the case. But the biggest question is how is he connected to French millionaire Alain Charnier (Fernado Rey)? One runs the drugs in NY, and the other is a business man from France whose clean and has no previous criminal activity? Whatever it is, Doyle is on it.

Russo and Doyle do a whole lot of stake outs

Older movies really appeal to me because they emphasize on the characters a lot more than the story itself. In The French Connection, the story is simple and generic. But what drives the story are the characters. The movie spends a lot of time showing how the characters behave, their mannerisms and personalities. By the end of it, I almost knew all about Doyle and Russo. That's why when Doyle opens fire without any hesitation, there is no questions why he is like that. It doesn't hurt to have a cast that fits so well with their characters. Hackman felt like he was born to play Doyle. And it was to my surprise that Paul Newman was initially thought to play Doyle. I wouldn't object to that, but I don't think even Steve McQueen would fit well here.

So now that I was deeply planted into the thick of it all. The movie delivered two great moments that stuck out, first one being when Doyle and his gang was following Boca and Charnier through the streets of busy NY and into the crowded subway system. The chase is tense with both sides one upping each other. The other great moment is the car chase scene between a car and a train. Now as unorthodox as this sounds, it is  a great scene. It stays with the overall tone with the movie; it's real tense. With Doyle racing a civilians 1971 Pontiac LeMans down the narrow streets with the train just over head. And this isn't a clean chase, he bangs the car up plenty (once by accident, but they kept it in the movie) and by the end of the movie it's almost a heap of junk. But it sure delivers some of the greatest action sequences with a car.

Narrowly misses a mother and her baby, into a pile of garbage.

Like I said before, '70's crime movies have a certain flair compared to any other movies. They emphasize a lot more on the characters, the story and don't really have all that much action. Though "The French Connection" was fairly violent, there weren't all that many gun fights but a good amount of blood. Most of the tension came from the chase and the build up and not necessarily from the action. The movie was phenomenal; there really isn't anything I could pick on besides the simple story and maybe the movie is a bit slow. I loved the movie and I'm super glad I saw it.