A Movie Review: The French Connection

The French Connection. Jimmy Doyle (Gene Hackman) and Buddy Russo (Roy Scheider) are undercover police officers. After taking down their most recent suspect, they go out for drinks. They notice Sal Boca (Tony Lo Bianco) spending a ton of money. On a whim, they decide to tail him to see where it leads. By doing solid investigative work, their case slowly expands. They are able to get wire tap authority and soon there is a French connection made. They are convinced they're onto something big though others suspect they're just investigating low level criminals. They are soon told to just drop the case, but when a sniper attempts to take Jimmy Doyle out, the case ramps back up.

Wow, I vaguely remember seeing this movie before -- it sort of dawned on me during the last 30 minutes -- but after seeing it again recently I have to say this movie is brilliant. This is a very well crafted crime thriller. It is a joy watching Jimmy Doyle and Buddy Russo slowly put together their case. It is also amusing to watch the cat and mouse game begin as the French connection realize that they're being watched. The French aren't stupid and know how to evade.

A couple issues:

1. When the sniper attempts to take out Jimmy Doyle from a rooftop, Jimmy goes up after him. From the rooftop, Jimmy sees the sniper running below him. Now the building looked to be at least 6 stories high. Somehow Jimmy is able to run down the stairs or go down the elevator and catch up to the guy. Yeah, I don't think so. Other than that, this movie is tightly written. I don't know if there are any other logical flaws.

2. I'm not sure that the passage of time is properly reflected in this movie. The stakeout takes place over a couple months, but you only learn about that when it is mentioned towards the end of the investigation. For some reason, I think the the passage of time should have been shown better, but then that is a rather minor complaint.