A winner of five Academy Awards
including Best Picture, The French
Connection is a taught and edgy police thriller starring Gene Hackman in
the role that won him the first of his two Oscars. The film is inspired by the
book of the same name and blends fact and fiction to bring a major drug
smuggling operation to the big screen. Detectives Jimmy ‘Popeye’ Doyle
(Hackman) and Buddy ‘Cloudy’ Russo (Roy Scheider) uncover a plot to smuggle a
large quantity of heroin from France
to the East Coast of the USA
and tail leads, battle assassins and fight their bosses in an attempt to bring
the traffickers down.
Early scenes criss-cross the
Atlantic between New York City and Marseilles where the protagonists are either
setting up to smuggle drugs or carrying out street busts. A few of the opening
scenes gave me eye strain due to the slightly juddery hand held style of camera
work used by Director William Friedkin. Once I was over the initial
disorientation that the camera work gave me though, I was able to appreciate
the almost documentary style of realism that Friedkin captures. He gets right
to the heart of the action with cameras placed in close quarters to the actors
when necessary but also stands back at times, delivering long tracking or panning
shots as the characters play a game of cat and mouse through the streets of New York.
