#93 - The French Connection (1971) - William Friedkin

The French Connection is a movie of contrasts. The opening scenes jump between Marseilles, France and New York City, highlighting the luxurious French coast and the dingy, deserted, urban wastelands of 1970s New York. A hit is carried out in France in the opening scene as the man behind it strolls his ocean-side estate, casually fishes, and drinks wine with his beautiful young wife. And in New York, two white cops patrol a black bar, rough up its patrons, chase one of them to an abandoned industrial park and rough him up some more as one of them tells his partner, “never trust a nigger.” The beauty and elegance of the life of the criminal is contrasted with the gritty and grimy world of the New York cops. This contrast strays from the traditional buddy-cop genre and sets us up to root for the bigoted and sleazy cops in their world of dirt who are trying to bring down the elegant and outwardly-respectable criminals.

The cops are Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman) and Buddy Russo (Roy Scheider). They are narcotics detectives stuck with a dry spell of drug activity, looking for leads and something to do. And without either, they follow one of Popeye’s notorious hunches – notorious, we later learn, because one of them led to the death of a cop, though we don’t learn why or how, but Popeye will fight anyone who brings it up. That’s our hero. The chief relents and allows the pair to follow and wiretap a suspicious-looking fella who wines and dines with high society by night and slums it with his wig-wearing wife at their small-time grocery store by day. After a few cold days and nights of stalking, the hunch pays off as the two overhear their target Sal Boca (Tony Lo Bianco) arrange to meet up with a Frenchman for some kind of drug deal.

The rest of the movie is Popeye and Buddy putting the pieces together. The contrasts continue. We learn more of the details of the plan as the Frenchman and his associates plot it out at their rendezvous on a seaside castle in France, while the cops stand outside and wander around freezing in New York, among petty drug dealers and users, litter, and burning garbage cans. The French plan is sophisticated – it involves a famous French actor importing a car (stashed with heroin) to use for a documentary in New York, various levels of the mob, a chemist, a grocery store cover-up, and international coordination. The cops, on the other hand, rely on a hunch and a lucky break from a questionable wiretap. At one point the Frenchman makes it to New York and Popeye tails him. In one scene the Frenchman is eating at a fancy restaurant. It is shot so that he is in the foreground, in the warm light of the restaurant, enjoying his multi-course meal, while through the window and across the street, Popeye leans against a wall, warming his hands on a paper cup of coffee and eating a greasy piece of pizza. The life of the criminal and the life of the cop.

The action picks up from there as the Frenchman is fully aware of being followed and cleverly evades Popeye in the subway in one of the best scenes of the film. The Frenchmen then turn the tables and try to take out Popeye with a sniper. This leads to another one of the best scenes and probably the most well-known scene from the movie. Popeye chases the sniper to the subway (or elevated train). The sniper gets on and Popeye has to confiscate a car to chase down the train. The scene is spectacular and still genuinely thrilling. The only soundtrack during the chase is the screech of tires, the roar of the engine, and chaotic horn honking. And even here there is stark contrast, as the scene cuts between the sniper calmly making his way through the train to take the driver hostage, while below Popeye crashes the car a couple times, honking and cursing like a madman, while narrowly avoiding traffic and pedestrians. Apparently it was shot with real traffic and real pedestrians and at one point the car has to avoid hitting a real woman pushing a carriage with a real baby inside. The realness is what makes it thrilling.

The entire movie is filled with this sense of realness – it feels like a realistic depiction of police work. Though Popeye is a loose cannon, he’s not a rogue cop. He’s not likeable and he’s not much of a hero, but he’s not a villain or an anti-hero either. This ambiguity feels true-to-life as things are rarely black and white. His methods are questionable and sometimes morally ambiguous, but he gets the job done. The movie is based on the true story of one of the biggest drug busts in history, and was adapted from a book detailing the real-life details. The French Connection preserves this authentic approach as the ending manages to be clear and cinematically satisfying, while preserving the ambiguity, and troubling aspects of real-life police work and the legal system. And it shows that no matter how posh, polished, and elegant the criminals, they can’t be caught without the cops getting their hands dirty.