Rating: 
Summary: A classic film noir!
Review: This work was the most powerful movie of William Friedkin . Supported by a very well elaborated script , high caliber tension and first rate cast .
Fernando Rey this unforgettable spanish actor plays the role of the master brain of the operation . Gene Hackman was in his second best film (after The conversation)playing the role of Popeye dole who sounds a little ridiculous but that worked out .
The car chase in New York city streets is a classic.
Rating:
Summary: SECOND BEST ACTION FLICK OF ALL TIME
Review: A NEW YORK DETECTIVE [GENE HACKMAN] CHASES A FRENCH DRUG RING. VERY WELL ACTED AND VERY GOOD STORY. UNLIKE OTHER ACTION FILMS, THERE ISN'T REALLY THAT MUCH ACTION. SO IN ALL ACTUALITY, IT'S NOT REALLY AN ACTION FILM. IT'S REALLY MORE OF A MYSTERY MOVIE. BUT OTHER THAN THAT, THIS IS ENTERTAINMENT IN ITS HIGHEST FORM! ROY SCHEIDER ALSO SHINES IN THIS MOVIE AS POPEYE DOYLE'S PARTNER. WATCH FOR THE CLASSIC CHASE SCENE. THIS ''ACTION'' FILM ACTUALLY WON SEVERAL OSCARS, INCLUDING BEST PICTURE. A REAL CLASSIC. ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME. FOLLOWED BY A SEQUEL.
Rating: 
Summary: The French Connection
Review: Maybe the years just didn't do this movie justice, but I did not think this 1971 oscar winner was anything extroidanary. It was a well acted, well directed cop drama with some good action scenes. Gene Hackman is defined by his role in this movie. His character reminds me of Tony Soprano, except on the other end of the law. After playing Mafia for a couple weeks, I think that the game designers who made Mafia must have been watching a lot of this movie, because there are too many similarities to be a coincidence, not in story, but in setting and in some of the action sequences.
Overall, this was a decent movie, but I was not impressed at all by the ending, which may be why I'm giving it a low score now. It dragged on some times when it should have just moved on to the next scene. Good movie to watch after a lazy sunday dinner.
Rating:
Summary: Hackman is at his best!
Review: Both Oscars won by Hackman were for portraying brutal & arrogant individuals. Popeye Doyle is the persona of the 70's cop, ruthless, determined, bold. It was a well made film that I love watching over and over again. Many of the scenes were done in my old Brooklyn neighborhood, especially the begining scene which I so remember being in (Bedford-Stuyvesant). It is New York through and through.
Rating:
Summary: Groundbreaking
Review: After two decades of watching squeaky clean LAPD Sergeant Joe Friday on "Dragnet", and decades of Chicago's favorite fed, Elliot Ness on "The Untouchables", and then the innocent buffoons of the NYPD on "Car 54 Where Are You?", it was little wonder that people of the t.v. era were shocked by this movie's unflinching look at New York's lawmen. THE FRENCH CONNECTION, if not for anything else, will be remembered as the film that ultimately de-romanticized the noble cop legend. Popeye Doyle (marvelouly portrayed by Gene Hackman) is the anti-cop. He is not a crooked cop by any means. However, he's bigoted, amoral, prone to violence, self-possessed, and oblivious to the rules of police conduct. Norman Mailer once said of bad cops that they are sworn to uphold the law but feel they are above it; that they are supposed to keep the peace, but are inherently violent. That's Popeye Doyle.The plotline of the film is fairly simple: the police receive information about a major drug operation about to go down, and they try to prevent it and arrest everyone involved. But Director Friedkin infuses the film with the complexities and dreariness inherent in pursuing such a case. I developed an appreciation of the hours of stake-out drudgery that the police go through. And then, of course, there's the danger every policeman confronts. There's something for everyone in this film, including the greatest car chase in movies (even if the car is chasing an elevated train). Note: the elevated tracks that Gene Hackman drives under are the same tracks that appeared in the opening credits of "Welcome Back, Kotter" and, more importantly, they are the same tracks that John Travolta saunters under in the open scene of "Saturday Night Fever". If you're interested, those are the elevated tracks of the West End line (now the "D" train) on 86th Street in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.
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