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The French Connection / French Connection II

Started by An tSaoi, June 19, 2010, 09:29:44 PM

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An tSaoi

AKA Gene Hackman's best work. He's utterly fantastic in both of them, but particularly the second one. I'm surprised that neither of them feature in the IMDb top 250, but then again, when was that ever an indicator of quality?

I'm not usually a fan of the maverick cop who breaks all the rules; the hard-nosed tough guy willing to beat up suspects who's just as vicious as the people he chases etc etc (one of my problems with Life on Mars and Ashes To Ashes is that they occasionally glorified Gene Hunt's thuggery, as if that constituted the Good Old Days, when they didn't have the namby-pamby PC brigade, eh viewers?), but The French Connection is a cut above the rest.

Unlike Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry, Gene Hackman isn't trying to be cool or at all likeable; he portrays Doyle as a flawed character who gets the job done through single-minded perseverance and hard graft. You're on his side simply because he's against the bad guys. There's no show-off scene where he taunts the criminals with witticisms, he'd sooner shoot them in the back. We're not expected to cheer at his recklessness or 'extreme prejudice'; it just has to be done.

I love the direction as well; shaky and grainy like a documentary. They devote a lot of the film to stake-outs, tailing, and general standing about waiting for something to happen. It really shows you that far from being a series of exciting chases and shootouts, police work is terribly boring most of the time. Of course, there is a chase, and it's one of the best in cinema.

However, it's the sequel that I really love. Some see it as the lesser film because it diverges from the real-life case upon which the first film is based, but I like it because it doesn't try to be a rehash of the first one; it's a different film and it works. The undisputed strong point is Hackman's performance, which even tops his Oscar Winning turn in 'part I'. I watched it again today and was amazed at how good he is when
Spoiler alert
Charnier has him forcibly hooked on heroin, and the following cold turkey sequence is a masterclass.
[close]
The ending contradicts the first film in that
Spoiler alert
Charnier was said never to have been caught
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, but that's a minor quibble.

Anyone else love these two? Or at least one of them?

Serge

I've only ever seen the first one, and years ago at that, but I do remember thinking it was marvellous. I must pick up the DVD with both of them on. If I remember rightly,
Spoiler alert
doesn't the bad guy get away at the end?
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I know that the exhilarating car chase sequence was basically winged, and some of those innocent bystanders are just that, not extras.

I think 'The Conversation' might just pip it as his best film. And I was shocked to read in a rare interview he gave last year that he actually retired a few years ago - he just didn't want to make a big thing of it. What a guy.

Also: Am I hallucinating or aren't the Three Degrees in the first one too?

An tSaoi

Yes, they are. I assumed the producers asked for a Three Degress-esque copycat group, but the end credits say it's actually them!