The French Connection (1971)

Genre: Action/Crime/Biography/Thriller

Starring: Gene Hackman, Fernando Ray, Marcel Bozzuffi, Roy Scheider, Tony Lo Bianco

A French heroin smuggler, Alain Charnier (Ray) is trying to smuggle heroin into the United States inside the car of an unsuspecting French television actor. NYPD detectives, Jimmy 'Popeye' Doyle (Hackman) and Buddy 'Cloudy' Russo (Scheider) have earned a reputation for themselves for managing to get wind of trails that don't end up anywhere and leave the police with a bad name. Whilst trying to nab a drug dealer, they learn about his source and one thing leads to another and they eventually get wind of Alain's heroin that is landing in New York soon. Due to their history, Popeye and Cloudy have a lot of convincing to do with their superiors to allow them to investigate further. The movie has managed to garner a strong cult following over the years and not without reason. The infamous car chase sequence where Hackman is chasing Bozzuffi in a car whilst the latter is on a train, has gone down in history as one of the most loved car chase sequences in any movie. The scene is very raw and had a lot of firsts in terms of stunts and camera angles that were never seen before in movies of that era. The story is based on a book which in turn is a fictionalised recreation of events in the '60's and '70's where heroin from France was regularly smuggled in through the East Coast. Although the movie has a very raw essence to it, it still seems to lack that outright zing or spark, but don't get me wrong, the movie is still a brilliant watch and is thoroughly entertaining. Anybody wanting to watch a good crime movie that harks back to 'the days' has to watch this one.

Thumbs up: Great raw action

Thumbs down: Needs a bit more spark

Rating: 8.0/10