Welcome to yet another Oscar Film Journal entry, here at Enuffa.com!
Still chipping away at the 1970s, today I'm talking about a film I watched years ago but didn't remember all that well, so I've given it another look. It's the 1971 Best Picture winner, The French Connection, directed by William Friedkin and starring Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider. The film loosely chronicles the exploits of NYC detective Eddie Egan (renamed Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in the movie), who famously uncovered and helped dismantle a French heroin smuggling ring in the early 60s, as described in the 1969 non-fiction book of the same name. Set a decade later and somewhat fictionalized, the film version plays as more of a character study of this unscrupulous, rather dirty cop whose prodigious instincts and street smarts help him sniff out this conspiracy. Doyle's police captain Simonson (played by Eddie Egan himself) disapproves of his methods and gives him the latitude to pursue the case against his own better judgment. The film cuts back and forth between Doyle's investigation and dingy lifestyle, and the smuggling racket. A narrative tension is established between Doyle's correct conclusions and his ability or lack thereof to prove he's right. Doyle and his partner "Cloudy" Russo tail the suspected principles for weeks without much success, until one of them decides to try and murder Doyle, finally creating a break in the case.
The film is perhaps most famous for its iconic chase scene, involving Doyle driving a car to run down an elevated subway train. Carefully storyboarded, this groundbreaking sequence was long-considered (along with the one from Bullitt) to be one of the greatest movie car chases of all time. It has since been eclipsed by films like Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Road Warrior (not to mention Fury Road), but for an early 70s chase it's pretty spectacular and has a sense of danger given that it takes place across busy city streets.
Hackman won a Best Actor award for this career-defining role, playing one of the period's great cinematic anti-heroes. Alongside Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry and Charles Bronson in Death Wish, "Popeye" Doyle became emblematic of early 70s flawed action protagonists who operated either slightly or flagrantly outside the law, where the ends justified the means. As a protagonist Doyle is hard to relate to and unlike in Dirty Harry and Death Wish there isn't a particularly personal stake in seeing him succeed; Harry was trying to catch a serial killer and Bronson was out to avenge his family, while Doyle is simply targeting a smuggling operation. But the procedural elements are engaging and there's a clever scene where the French operative outsmarts him on the subway.
The film ends on an odd note. Where the real life Eddie Egan was successful in catching his quarry, it's revealed in title cards that Doyle largely came up short, never apprehending the mastermind Charmier. We're given this information after Doyle runs off to chase him and fires his gun offscreen. I guess the result of the investigation isn't so much the point, it's more about a dirty cop and his methods not being as effective as he thinks, but it's a strange, uncertain way to end the film, especially since it isn't how the actual case concluded.
Overall I would say I admired The French Connection more than I enjoyed it. Hackman's performance is memorable but the story is more of a backdrop and since we spend a lot of time with the smugglers and thus already know Doyle's hunch is correct, it perhaps robs the film of some suspense. If Doyle were insistent on the legitimacy of his investigation but the audience were less certain, it would be more emotionally engaging than watching him try to prove what we already know. We'd be more wary of Doyle's methods if there were a possibility he were barking up the wrong tree, I think.
On balance I'll give The French Connection *** out of ****.
No comments:
Post a Comment