Review: The French Connection (1971)

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People always remember the car chase. Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman) commandeers a car and races it through the streets of Brooklyn in pursuit of an elevated train on the tracks above. The film cuts back and forth between the hitman on the train, who forces the conductor to miss the stops, and Popeye in the car as he barrels through everything in his way, narrowly avoiding traffic, crashing through garbage cans, getting blindsided by trucks as he screams for everyone to get out of the way. It’s one of the most exhilarating car chases in the history of cinema, something so chaotic and gritty that you have to wonder whether any of it was legal (much of it wasn’t). But it’s not the only chase in The French Connection. The entire film is seemingly one thrilling pursuit after another. The French Connection is a riveting action film but also a down-and-dirty urban drama. William Friedkin effortlessly blends the two genres, which is remarkable. The film is one of the hallmarks of New Hollywood cinema and cements its place in the canon.

Watching The French Connection immediately in the wake of Gene Hackman’s death in February 2025 puts the film in a different light. It becomes an encapsulation of Hackman’s skill as an actor, a 104-minute showcase for what was so compelling about his unadorned acting style. Hackman’s Popeye Doyle is a complete bastard. We first meet him in a Santa Claus costume roughing up a black dope dealer, making bad jokes as he beats him up. Later, he casually drops the N-word to his partner, Buddy “Cloudy” Russo (Roy Scheider), as he warns him about letting his guard down and to never trust a black man.

From our modern standpoint, his racism is the most alarming thing in this scene, but our shock in 2025 can cause us to miss the crucial line seconds later: “Never trust anybody.” That’s Popeye’s modus operandi and Hackman makes us believe it. He’s a dirty cop because he breaks every rule in the playbook to get the bad guys, but not to make himself rich or lord his power over criminals, although he does that at points, almost always with black characters, enjoying how uncomfortable his presence makes them. For instance, when he meets up with a dealer who’s working for him as a CI (confidential informant), he relishes the punch he has to give him afterwards to make it seem like he was frisking him rather than chatting with him. Hackman has a way of having Popeye say something he knows to be cruel and then smiling and holding eye contact, as if begging the person he’s talking to to call him on his cruelty. He likes to make trouble, but he’s still ultimately committed to justice. His job is his life and he’s got to nail the dope dealers, regardless of whether he has to shoot another cop to make it happen.

We never see much of Popeye’s life when he’s not on the clock. We see him pick up a random girl on a bike and get handcuffed to his bed in the process. We see how his apartment is a squalid place with stacks of books and boxes and a bicycle blocking the doorway. His work is his life and his life is terrible and he hates it, but he sublimates that hatred and uses it as fuel. Perhaps his dedication to the job is just psychological projection, blaming the dope dealers for making a mess of the city as if they also made a mess of his life, but it’s still dedication.

Popeye’s dedication makes him doggedly pursue Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey) and the other French drug dealers who are moving $32 million of heroin into New York from Marseilles. That pursuit leads him to follow them. And follow them. And follow them. As I said off the top, most of The French Connection is chase sequences. Many are by foot. Some are by car. The car chases are the most chaotic, but the ones on foot are perhaps more tense, more complicated. Friedkin thrills in the details of the chases throughout the film. Cloudy’s dialogue lays out the chain of how the drugs move from dealer to dealer so we understand why we’re following these people. Then Popeye leads us through the actual process of following them. He tails Charnier through the streets to restaurants and hotels and most memorably, into Grand Central Station.

There, Popeye almost dances with Charnier. He gets on the subway car and Charnier, aware that he’s being tailed, gets off. So Popeye gets off, but he has to concoct a reason to get off, so he goes to throw something out. Then Charnier gets back on so he gets back on. Both are playing with each other, playing parts, Charnier pretending that he’s not trying to avoid a cop, Popeye pretending that he isn’t a cop. They’re flirting, basically, which is why it’s so fitting that we get the iconic shot of Charnier waving a demur little wave at Popeye who fumes in rage as he chases the subway car racing away. It’s such a feminine wave and Popeye’s reaction is so masculine. He’s been denied his satisfaction. Maybe my comment about Popeye’s fixation becoming psychological projection isn’t so far off.

The chases are thrilling, but they also let us understand Popeye as a human being. The character and the crime plot work in perfect unison here, as does Friedkin’s gritty approach. Friedkin’s stripped down approach is almost too ugly for me at times, as I’m a sucker for the sheen of Steven Spielberg and the style of Martin Scorsese. But Friedkin isn’t interested in sheen or style in The French Connection. This isn’t To Live and Die in L.A., where Friedkin would revisit many of this film’s themes but channel them through a more stylish genre vehicle. Friedkin is like Popeye here, doggedly focused on one thing and one thing only.

It’s unlikely that I’d ever call The French Connection my favourite film of the 1970s, because it’s frequently ugly, frequently dirty, unafraid to make us hate its characters. But that’s also why it’s so good and why it continues to register over 50 years later. It reminds us of Gene Hackman’s prowess as an actor, and how a clever director could utilize him most effectively. Most of all it reminds us of the value of a good chase scene, whether by car or foot.

10 out of 10

The French Connection (1974, USA)

Directed by William Friedkin; written by Ernest Tidyman, based on the book by Robin Moore; starring Gene Hackman, Fernando Rey, Roy Scheider, Tony Lo Bianco, Marcel Bozzuffi.

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