by What makes a classic? Clearly, this is a difficult question to answer. One that defies any unimpeachable explanation. But taste matters. Regardless of a film’s significance to film history, in terms of topic, discourse, cinematography, or any other characteristic, to be counted among the classics, a film has to be good. And even though THE FRENCH CONNECTION has been counted as classic many times, it is one of those films that make you wonder: what’s so significant about it, and why is it good in the first place? Even if you’re determined to like it, this “classic” has very little to speak in its favor.
THE FRENCH CONNECTION was written by Ernest Tidyman based on the non-fiction book of the same name written by Robin Moore in 1969. It follows French drug runners smuggling their merchandise into the United States and the authorities investigating into the case. That’s about the extent of it. Without knowing anything about the actual case, it’s impossible to compare fact and fiction. But that’s beside the point anyway. A film not claiming to be factual can always take liberty of changing things at will for dramatic effect and entertainment, a liberty that has either been neglected or poorly been used here. The story is confusing and tedious. In other words, there’s no excuse for Tidyman’s script. The pace is slow, evidence pops up seemingly out of nowhere, the detectives draw conclusions without a good explanation – the list of flaws is long. And director William Friedkin contributed nothing to actually turning this film around. Already the first scenes of the film taking place in the south of France are uninteresting, oddly filmed and raise much more questions than they answers. There are no massive plot holes throughout the film but in conjunction, they make a pretty big mess.
Friedkin even fails to utilize his primary setting, the run-down and dirty, yet strangely interesting and attractive New York City of the 70s that Martin Scorsese made famous five years later in TAXI DRIVER. This New York is nothing, it’s filmed like any other place in the world without emphasizing anything. Consequently, no visual language adds to the discourse. Are we in Manhattan now, in the Bronx, Queens or Brooklyn, Staten Island, even? Or Nutley, New Jersey? We never really now, not that it’d matter much. THE FRENCH CONNECTION is supposed to be a thriller, and yet all the story does is bumble about, either following the French drug kingpin Alain “Frog One” Charnier (Fernando Rey), or the two street-smart goofball detectives Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle and Buddy “Cloudy” Russo (Roy Schneider). The three of them go together quite nicely, since neither is interesting or likeable in any way. There is no thrill, not even when Popeye seems to get the knack of it and crack the case, finding himself in an ambush orchestrated by the French drug smugglers. And how could any thrill develop if you fail to care for the protagonist in danger? Gene Hackman’s Popeye has been praised in raving reviews for four decades, yet he comes across like a stock character that lacks attitude, motivation, development and certainly much more.
Hackman’s trump card is Schneider, who’s even less interesting and captivating. Which is kind of a feat in its own regard, given Hackman’s performance. We never know why he’s a detective. We never understand how he developed connections into New York’s criminal underbelly. We don’t even know why he’s taking that young woman casually riding her bike down the road to his ratty apartment and then finds himself handcuffed to his bed when Cloudy drops by for no particular reason that justifies his presence. All this is characteristic of the general tone of THE FRENCH CONNECTION. It’s tedious and uninspiring, but first and foremost, it’s boring when it’s trying to be exciting or at least innovative. Which invariably leads to the car chase. That famous car chase everyone’s heard about. The greatest car chase in cinema history? God, no. Popeye’s driving is so uninspiring it almost urges young guns to abide by speed limits instead of engage in illegal street racing. What we see is poor driving, a slow car understeering, crashing into garbage bins, wheels spinning without traction or at least smoke, while following an elevated train hijacked by one of the French. Not much more can be said about this “greatest car chase in cinema history,” least in its favor. Compared to contemporary films such as VANISHING POINT (1971), BULLITT (1968), THE DRIVER (1978) and others, both driving and action fall short, to say the least. Not even the cars are interesting. And if you take into consideration that films featuring much better driving were made later, like RONIN (1998), GONE IN 60 SECONDS (both the original 1974 film and the 2000 remake) or BABY DRIVER (2017), putting THE FRENCH CONNECTION up there is nothing short of laughable.
All right, Popeye’s here! Get your hands on your heads, get off the bar, and get on the wall!
Popeye
As if we needed even more evidence that this film doesn’t amount to much, there’s the closing sequence on Wards Island, one of the city’s dumps. Popeye cracked the case because he can do simple math. But the trap they’re setting up is ridiculous. Instead of raiding the island and surprise the perpetrators, they wait for Frog One to drive across the bridge, where, in an attempt to be cool, Popeye is standing in front of the police cruisers waving casually at him. It gets worse when the island is raided with avoidable casualties and Popeye shoots Muldering (Bill Hickman), a character who has no actual significance whatsoever to the story, by chance without feeling any remorse over it. Is Popeye driven? Is he mad? Stupid, even? We never know for sure, yet our skilled French perpetrator easily tricks him in a genius manner: he runs off. End of story. He’s never caught and Popeye is yanked from his division. We learn that much in text prior to the end credits. Not that we’d care.
There’s not much evidence, if any evidence at all, that speaks for Friedkin’s THE FRENCH CONNECTION. It is a bad film all the way. And not because it’s old now. This film, sadly, has always been bad yet hailed as a classic. To put it bluntly, there’s nothing that would qualify it as a classic, less so if compared to other films of the period. The writing is confusing, the directing bad, the action boring. Given all this, it seems unlikely a better script that took the liberty of changing more of the non-fiction work it was based on could’ve changed anything about it. Film buffs should watch THE FRENCH CONNECTION for its relevance. After all, it’s a film often quoted as inspiration. But to count it amongst the classics seems like a vast overstatement of its qualities.
