#93 - The French Connection

If it hasn't become obvious through my recent postings, I like a simple story done well. That, to me, is the perfect movie. I like stories that can be boiled down to just a few sentences. This does not make me a simpleton, someone who is defective in following labyrinthine plots. I just think it is better to say a lot about a little than say a little about a lot.

So 1971's "The French Connection" was a bit of a disappointment to me. It's the story of two New York City cops on the narcotics beat, trying to intercept an international heroin drug deal. I've become a fan of crime movies the past couple of years, so I thought I would enjoy this film. I did enjoy it on a superficial level, but I didn't understand it because of the complicated plot and mumbling-and-bumbling characters. I'm a believer in telling a story in media res (starting in the middle), but there has to be some explanation of what is going on, or else I feel like I'm spending half the movie playing catch-up.

Gene Hackman was great as tough-cop Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle, but Oscar-worthy? I guess so when you're in a group of nominated films none of which I've heard of, except for "Fiddler on the Roof." Not exactly stiff competition.

It should be noted that the movie was groundbreaking in that it was the first R-rated movie to win Best Picture, which is saying something in the early 1970s. The violence is bloody and gruesome, the language profane and suggestive, but it's real. What is most famous about the movie is perhaps the classic car chase sequence, which is often cited as being one of the best in cinema history. But a good car chase does not make a great movie.

MSNBC goes so far as to say, "Without its nerve-wrackingly real chase sequence, filmed on New York streets, [the] box-office smash might not have collected the Oscars for best picture, director and film editing."

Aside from the car chase, the groundbreaking content and language, and Hackman's performance, this movie fell a little flat for me. I had great expectations for the film, but they were destroyed by a convoluted plot and sometimes cryptic colloquialisms.