I saw *The French Connection *(1971), the Gene Hackman/Popeye Doyle movie, that Ebert gave the precious four stars to.
I didn’t like it; the dialogue and characters seemed less than three dimensional, and overall it didn’t seem to age well. Not even Gene Hackman could save it.
Am I missing something?
Pfft! No doubt you pick your feet in Poughkeepsie ;).
I dunno, I am possibly a prisoner of my fading memory. I first saw it as a young teen and loved it. But it has been so many years since I last watched it I’m not sure if favorite scenes ( like Hackman trailing “Frog 1” through the subway ) would still work as well for me today as they once did.
The French Connection is no longer really rated that all-fired highly by anybody - moviegoers, critics, whatever:
It’s rated 7.9 by the users at the IMDb - good but not spectactular. I would guess that the usual feeling these days is that it might be one of the 500 best films ever, but it would be towards the bottom of the list of the 500 best.
It has that super-awesome car/subway chase and Gene Hackman acting like a total bad-ass, but other than that it’s pretty standard '70s cop stuff.
It’s worth it for the chase, though.
Good for the time and genre, one of the defining films of its type. Which is like saying a given place has the definitive fast-food hamburger.
It looks old because everyone’s done it. It’s like watching Citizen Kane and not getting the hype. The film broke ground for all who followed and copied it, and built on that foundation.
My high school is in the background during some of those chase scenes–I can watch it all day. What makes me crazy is the non-sequential nature of the chase, known only to those who recognize local landmarks, but infuriatingly confusing to those who do.
It was a great flick for its time…but like all 1970’s pictures, it focused upon action. The subway/car/elevated train chase is a classic in my opinion. Actually pretty realistic, as tailing narcotics dealers was pretty standard for the NYPD in that time. What was never touched upon was the corruption-the whole enterprise depended upon lots of corruption and cooperation with certain of the NYPD.
What others have said, you have to view it in the context of that time and in that regard it was gritty, exciting and for many of us our first inside look at international crime and the drug trade. Look at the paltry amount of smack they were trying to get into NYC and the cheesy deceptions they tried to pull. Now it’s laughable but back then it was innovative. The chesse, the sleeze, all good! I love this show.
Do not though under any circumstances follow it up with The French Connection II. The Seven-Ups maybe but FC II was one of the worst attempts of trying to cash in on initial success with a sequel ever.
ETA: Google and read the inside skinny on the car chase. Plus, the cop Doyle accidentally shot? He was the Charger driver in Bullitt.
Also not touched upon is that the whole thing almost came crashing down during the early stages. I read My Father’s Gun a few years back; there’s a chapter which goes into a bit of detail about how the detectives who were working the case and some cops from the local precinct all ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It also took fuller advantage of the post-code permissiveness. Popeye is a classic anti-hero, with a penchant for violence and unapologetic racial and sexual hang-ups. The life of a cop is drudgery and very unglamorous. The inside look at the narco-traffic system is indepth and interesting. And the ending is a bit of a downer.
But the obvious thing that’s noticeable now is that there’s almost no characterization. It’s more similar to a procedural on TV than giving any insight into the detectives. What’s there is by virtue of Hackman and Scheider’s acting and very little of what’s on the page. I think that’s why it feels so thin now, and why the Kane comparison is a bad one. CK may seem overly familiar, but its qualities have not diminished over time. There’s still a lot of sophisticated filmmaking to chew on But FC benefitted from qualities that were both new and well-crafted, but since the novelty has worn off, there’s less to support it now (though the action is still terrific). Friedkin is simply no Welles.
I didn’t care much for it when it first came out*. The “rocker panel” scene was just plain lazy screen writing, and Doyle did a lot of stupid things (he realizes the leader of the gang recognizes him and than tries to pretend he’s not there), as does the head of the smuggling ring (leaving a car filled with heroin in a crime-ridden neighborhood?:rolleyes:).
The chase scene was OK, I suppose – if you’ve never seen Bullett.
Hackman is good (as usual) so there’s that and it gets props for making him into a star, but I think it’s very overrated.
*I ended up seeing it several times, since I would end up dating women who had never saw and insisted we go.
I’m not a big fan of Friedkin, other than the source of my current sig quote.
I watched it a few years ago and was underwhelmed–especially by the car chase that everyone raves about.
"The “rocker panel” scene was just plain lazy screen writing, " How so?
“The chase scene was OK, I suppose – if you’ve never seen Bullett” There can be only one car chase scene counted as good/exciting in the entire output of cinem - and it has to be Bullett?
“I’ve taken the car apart, everything except for the rocker panels.”
Hackman perks up
“What’s a rocker panel, Jimmy?”
Bullett was roughly contemporaneous. To Live and Die in LA was awesome but much later. Same with numerous others. What else from that time period do you think compares? I don’t want to miss anything. 
The details, IIRC, if anyone’s interested: [spoiler]The undercover detectives, who were still trying to prove a French connection, were holed up in a(n abandoned?) building, planning their next move, when a couple of cops from the local precinct walked in. The precinct cops, not knowing that this operation was taking place in their territory, thought they had stumbled onto a major unrelated drug operation and pulled their pistols. The detectives, thinking their covers had been blown and these cops were there to kill them, also pulled their pistols.
Fortunately, one of the undercovers soon recognized one of the precinct cops as a friend’s relative and defused the situation by asking about the friend and the rest of the family. No shots were fired and there was relieved laughter all around.[/spoiler]
I thought it was great when it came out and having seen it a month ago, I thought it was still pretty good. One thing noticed this time was how dirty and grimy John Lindsey’s Fun City was.
Always wondered what happened when the citizen who Hackman borrowed the car from got it back.
Gimme The Friends of Eddie Coyle or Bullitt any day over TFC. It’s good but overrated. I don’t think it is one of Hackman’s best.
The only thing really wrong with it is that it’s been done over since by other movies and better. Hell, some TV shows are better.
It was a big deal at the time though.
I was never much of a fan of Bullitt, but I loved The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Haven’t seen that one in awhile either. Wonder if it is on netflix streaming…