Day #40 - The French Connection

IMDB Link

Strikes and gutters - for as many good movies as I've been watching, I'm bound to run across one from time to time that I don't care for. I had high hopes for this movie because I, like every sane person in the world, love Gene Hackman. He has the voice, ya know - it lends itself perfectly to being raised, so I love it when he yells and gets mad. The French Connection came out in 1971 and won 5 Oscars - Best Picture, Best Actor (Gene Hackman), Best Director (William Friedkin), Best Film Editing and Best Screenplay. Perhaps this was a movie that was really significant for its time and that's the risk you take in watching older movies - without the context sometimes you miss the point. ...which I did.

Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider play NYC cops who are assigned to a special investigation involving a group of drug dealers. Gene plays Jimmy Doyle, a man who seems to work off of impulses and gut feelings, which doesn't always instill confidence in his plans. He discovers that the men he is following are actually working a deal with a French group who is smuggling drugs overseas to help with the "drought" in NYC. Thus, the French connection. Beyond that, I don't really care to even get into the story. If I were to look at the screenplay for this movie, I imagine it's about 10 pages along. There was SO little dialogue and I felt like the movie was Gene Hackman following the bad guys around for a long time, then a few lines of dialogue, then more following, then a car chase scene, more following....it just go really old. I know, I know, the chase scene is one of the best in film history, no? I'm not a car chase kind of person so I was just glad when the movie was over. I know it's harsh, but it just wasn't my thing.