Since you’re reading this, yes, I’ve never actually watched The French Connection before this though I recall that this was one of the boring old films that often showed up on Malaysian television channels when I was growing up. Now I know that it’s a highly regarded crime thriller containing one of the best car chase scenes ever put on film, so watching it is a must.

The most recognizable stars here are Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider who play the two New York City detectives “Popeye” Doyle and “Cloudy” Russo. The film follows their efforts to bust a huge drug smuggling operation that brings heroin into the United States through France, hence the title. Interestingly, this film is an almost pure police procedural. There are no side-plots, back stories or character development. Instead, it simply records the entire process of tracking down the criminals and finding out what they’re up step by exacting step.

This film is often praised for its realistic, documentary-like style. There’s certainly a gritty, street-level feeling to it that my wife said reminded her of The Wire. But the more cynical part of me is tempted to observe that while its style is realistic, its substance really isn’t. The film starts out slow and fairly low-key, almost boringly so, with the detectives pumping informants and spending endless hours on stakeouts. But things rapidly get more exciting from there, ending in what is almost a full-blown action film. Watching an assassin attempt to snipe the lead detective is engrossing stuff, but I’m not sure how credible that is. The same goes for the police being to completely dismantle a car and put it back together again in a single day without the owners noticing that anything was wrong.

Note also how the film deliberately delays the police action in the finale. The audience is primed to expect that the police to crash the drug deal, as indeed we’re used to this and have already watched such a scene play out earlier. So director William Friedkin masterfully frustrates this expectation and switches it around to a huge police blockade at the bridge. It’s a great bit of filmmaking that adds drama and suspense to the scene, but I wouldn’t call it very realistic.

Still, it’s the same kind of mastery of pacing that makes the whole film so heartstoppingly exciting and engrossing to watch. You can’t help but be caught up in the intricacies of the detectives tailing the suspects. I don’t have to elaborate on how amazing the car chase scene is. Amusingly, while watching this play out, I was thinking, “Wait, haven’t I seen this exact scenery in one or another of the Grand Theft Auto games before?” It wouldn’t surprise me if Rockstar had used this scene and its backdrop as inspiration for its Liberty City.

All in all, I found that The French Connection really is as fantastic an action thriller as its reputation suggests. The only thing I really object to is the ending crawl that lists out of the fates of the various characters. I don’t think that was necessary and only serves to give the wrong impression that the events in it are true when it is in fact just a highly fictionalized account.