Epic car race (NO CGI!). But what is it with the pink blood? Whenever I see someone shot, I feel like they had a food coloring battle... never noticed that before....

"That son of a bitch is here. I saw him. I'm gonna get him."

If you like watching movies were they chase people, this is it. The French Connection is one big chase with an epic performance by Gene Hackman. It is one of my favorite crime films and one that keeps getting better whenever I rewatch it. So happy I came across it on Disney+.

Love the gritty looking New York City, love the scenes were they are following the bad guys on foot, love the epic car chase scene, love the sudden ending, love the way Marcel Bozzuffi falls down the stairs when he got shot and well I basically love everything!

The French Connection is a classic that feels raw and is easy to watch. If you are up for it watch it. Don't expect a epic story but policemen chasing criminals for 100 minutes. It is one of William Friedkin's best.

Swift.
...it's been a long time since I've consistently gasped at a movie.
Probably the most well edited detective chasing scenes I've ever seen put to film and, since this is '71, it's crazy how enormous this film's influence was to the crime genre.
The climax reminded me of True Detective S1's climax.
I also absolutely love Gene Hackman here - it's my favourite movie lead in a while.

Like flooring a Camaro on ice, the 70s muscle feel is unbeatable but it's a little all over the place.

An interesting detective action movie(which is definitely a genre I do not like so I am biased, though I tried compensating for it in my final score), at most part it felt extremely unrealistic to me, but from an action movie perspective it was expected, though the end sets it apart from all other brainless action movies. For its influencity and the ending it gets 7.

The movie is good and well acted but slower than To Live and Die In L.A., from the same director. I also find some parts too jumpy. Like, Doyle just shot one guy and falls over after looking hurt.
Then the film skips to Doyle totally fine and after someone else along with his partner. Doyle also wasn’t too smart in the end. He got too cocky, thinking he had his man. Rather than surrounding him in every direction with police cars.
For an old movie though the film doesn’t have too many police movie cliches. You just have a determined cop out to get his man and that’s about it.
Which makes the ending some-what disappointing. However, the film also avoids the cliche of the good guy always getting his man. So I can admire that as well.

That car chase scene really is great. That's all I really knew about this going in and it lived up to my expectations. Gene Hackman is really good too.

A classic. I really liked this. It felt very real, as if I was taking a tour of New York City with some cops. And some of the shots were lovely to look at. There were flaws, the biggest one was the scene in the underground car park where Roy Scheider's character literally bumps into the criminal Sal Bocca and exchanges words - I thought at the time Scheider was a dirty cop. That scene was a bit muddled. But the rest of it, wow it was brilliantly edited and acted. Gene Hackman is a bona fide hollywood legend.

The way Freakdin creates a mystery within a mystery is also great. He leaves us with little tantalysing images of French advertsiments, French logos, and the "word connection" etc I expect he was having fun with us, but I enjoyed his shennanigans.


All in all a really enjoyable cops and robbers turn with little Hollywood sentimentalism or cliches to be seen.

8.5/10

I guess this is what people mean when they talk about gritty'70s movies. Certainly did a good job displaying the harsh reality that was once NYC. But the story plodded and there weren't any memorable scenes or strings of dialogue. The "epic car chase" could be done now by attaching an iPhone to the hood of your car. Not as groundbreaking as I was expecting...certainly doesn't stand up to my favorite chase scene from Ronin. This just doesn't age as well as other 70s pics like Jaws, Rocky, Close Encounters that still tell a story. 6/10

70s Narco crime done right!