The French Connection

William Friedkin has made a cop movie that feels like a documentary. No glossy Hollywood sheen here. Just cold streets, handheld cameras, and the kind of gritty realism that puts you right next to Gene Hackman as he prowls through New York’s underbelly like a hungry wolf.

Hackman is Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle, a vice detective who lives to hunt. Hackman’s casting is perfect. His face looks like it’s taken a punch or two.

The script doesn’t prettify anyone. Doyle is a bigoted bully. The drug dealers are sociopathic capitalists. When cops dismiss a woman as “19 going on 50,” the lines blur. This amoralistic approach gives the film its power. Nobody here deserves our sympathy—only our attention.

Friedkin turns New York into a character. Jackhammers echo through dialogue. Steam rises from manholes. The city breathes and sweats. It’s a technique Michael Mann would later perfect in his Los Angeles films, and Doyle’s obsessive hunting echoes forward to Al Pacino’s driven cop in Heat.

Then comes the car chase. Legendary doesn’t overstate it. Hackman pursues an elevated train through city traffic while Friedkin puts us in the passenger seat. We feel every swerve, every near-miss, the terror of oncoming traffic. Friedkin cuts wide to show us grinding metal and close to show us Hackman’s determination. It’s a masterpiece of controlled chaos.

Only the finale disappoints. When that runaway train crashes, Friedkin gives us a POV shot rushing toward impact, then cuts away to shaking cameras and flailing passengers. After such visceral realism, this feels like a budget compromise.

One other quibble: the impounded car sequence. Doyle’s team strips it to bare metal searching for drugs—a process taking hours. Then the owner appears, and somehow Roy Scheider presents him with a fully reassembled vehicle. In a film this realistic, such details matter.

But these are minor complaints about a major achievement. The French Connection is a perfect marriage of director, star, and material. Friedkin has made the rare police procedural that trusts its audience to handle moral ambiguity. Its reputation is earned.