The Connection

If I could only recommend you go and see one film this year, The Connection would be it.

The film follows the true story of the rise and fall of Pierre Michel "The Judge", played by The Artist's Oscar winning Jean Dujardin, against the Marseillaise mafia gang The French Connection in the 1970s. The story had already been put to cinema in The Judge (1984), but this time the story's been redone much more ambitiously.

It's a typical good guy versus bad guy story, but it's the bells and whistles in this film that really make it so much more than that. The director achieves the perfect combination of action, drama, comedy and tragedy with the irrepressible Mediterranean sun beating down on every day time scene in the film. The Mediterranean settings give the film a sense of glamour and surrealism, juxtaposing the surreal nature of life as a successful drug trafficker in the 1970s, passing time between seaside villas and the biggest nightclub in Marseille.

This is film making at its best - it's as if the screen writer and director Cédric Jimenez pulled out an old school book of film making craft written in the 1970s and followed all the old rules to perfection to bring about not only a brilliant piece of cinematic entertainment, but also of art. This film is a living, breathing and intimate nostalgic reinvention of the 1970s and a just and accurate portrayal of a real gangster story, with some liberties in representing the character's private lives.

Cédric Jimenez grew up himself in Marseille in the 1970s and says that the story of the Judge has run through his veins his whole life. He has wanted to make this film as long as he has wanted to be a film maker, starting his career initially as a documentary maker. He chose to shoot the whole film with a hand held camera, which gives the film it's intimate and raw feeling.

It is an absolute viewing pleasure to be immersed back into the 1970s era and the sets and costumes have been rendered to perfection, to every last detail. The velour furniture, the dingy nightclubs, the glamorous dresses and old style police surveillance technologies are a delight to rediscover. The cowboy style of policing in the 1970s makes the action scenes much more exciting than anything depicting the risk-averse 2000s - the only person in the film wearing even a bullet proof vest is the gang leader Gaëtan "Tany" Zamper (Gilles Lellouche).

There are countless unforgettable scenes in this film, the dialogue is witty, the action is edgy and the acting is superb. Another highlight is the film's soundtrack featuring endless classics from the 1970s (Blondie, Kim Wilde and the Velvet Underground) and tunes by composer Guillaume Roussel that reflect the film soundtracks of the time (for example, his tune Meurtre de fou). It can be tough to watch a sub-titled film for 2h15min, but believe me it's worth it.

In the many reviews and description of the movie, it is mentioned that Pierre Michel is a detective. That is wrong. Pierre Michel was a judge, which is very different from a detective. Was Pierre Michel doing a detective work? Well it could be considered as yes, but his main work position was being a judge.

Pierre (Jean Dujardin) is a good French cop we can admire; Tany (Gilles Lellouche) is a drug lord we can like despite his murderous heroin. The Connection, loosely based on incidents surrounding the infamous French Connection, both real and depicted in William Friedkin's 1971 award-winning thriller starring Gene Hackman. If you can separate yourself from the testosterone-fueled business, you will experience a thriller of humane proportions.

Pierre has taken over the magistrate's responsibility for mob activity, and heroin is the big enemy. Writer-director Cedric Jimenez and writer Audrey Diwan expertly navigate between his daily professional activity and after-work family life with a wife and two children. When it's revealed that Pierre had an addictive gambling problem, the audience is appreciative of his weakness but cognizant of his obsessive personality, such as pursuing Tany.

The film also shows mobster Tany in his two worlds of business and family. While the director may too frequently parallel edit the two characters in these roles, he successfully reveals two characters with traits we can understand.

Beyond the inevitable blood, of which there is less than might be expected, is the oft-told tale of highly-driven men who want successful careers and happy family life—those of us who have seen many such thrillers know the balance is impossible. In a way the film draws us into each sphere with responses more sympathetic than judgmental.

The pace of The Connection is frenetic between paralleling the two principles' activities and chronicling the confrontations (I like when the two meet at a remote spot in a low-key, un-macho response for both) many of which are hair-raising heists and busts. Just as often, however, the film slows it down to a daily level that draws in our attention to the little things of life yet keeps the suspense and terror in the background.

As in A Most Violent Year, starring Oscar Isaac about a good but going-bad business man in NYC in the early '80's, so too does The Connection make that lawless time, albeit European, seductive because Dujardin is so compelling while he breaks laws to stop crime. It's ironic and complicated. That's life, and that's Chinatown, Jake.

"The Connection" (2014 release from France and Belgium; 135 min. original title "La French") is an action crime drama, "loosely based on real events" we are reminded at the beginning of the movie. Those real events are the role the southern French city of Marseille played in supplying (some might say: overwhelming) the US with hard drugs in the 1970s. As the movie opens, it says "Marseille, 1975", and as we follow a motor scooter, the biker all of the sudden stops, and shoots someone in cold blood in a nearby car. We then get to know Pierre Michel, a magistrate who is just being transferred from Juvenile to Organized Crime. Michel throws himself with gusto into the mob-fighting, and along the way bruises with his colleagues at work too. At this point we're about 15 min. into the movie, but to tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: first, when a movie puts up a disclaimer that says "loosely based" on real events, you can bet your last dollar that the movie departs significantly from what really happened. How is it that "The French Connection", surrounding similar facts from the US perspective, was made in 1971, yet this movie plays out from 1975 into the early 80s? If you set aside historical concerns, this movie does quite well, actually. The story is solid and takes its time to play out. No, there isn't a singular scene as memorable as the car/elevated train chase as in "The French Connection", but there is enough tension in "The Connection" that it kept me interested from start to finish. Second, a major plus is the historical accuracy in the decors and scenery. Right away from the opening scene on the motor scooter, I was marveling at all the 1970s French cars (Renault, Simca, Citroen, you name, they're all there, and plentiful), which I loved growing up in Belgium during that era. Likewise with attention to clothing and such. Third, the movie is technically a French-Belgian co-production, and the Belgian investors required some scenes shot in Belgium. The Krypton night club scenes were shot in Antwerp, Belgium (my original home town), and the prison scenes were shot in Charleroi, Belgium. Fourth, Jean Dujardin has a meaty character and role here, and he gives a fine performance as Magistrate Michel. Last but certainly not least, there is a very nice collection of songs in the movie from that era, both French (Serge Gainsbourg, Mike Brant, Sheila, etc.) and English (Blondie, Velvet Underground, Venus Ganga, Kim Wilde, etc.). It's available on Amazon France.

"The Connection" opened last weekend at my local art house theater here in Cincinnati, and I finally had a chance to see it. The early evening screening where I saw this at was attended so-so, and that's a shame. I found "The Connection" always entertaining, never boring and at times outright riveting. If you are in the mood for a quality foreign movie, or perhaps just curious how "la French" (as the term 'French Connection' was referred to in France) is portrayed by this French interpretation of it, you cannot go wrong with this movie. "The Connection" is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

In the late 1960s and early 1970s drugs were flowing from Marseille to New York in a sophisticated and sustained operation. The Americans made two movies about the racket: "The French Connection" (1971) set in New York and "The French Connection II" (1975) located in Marseiiles, in both cases with Gene Hackman famously playing the police crime-buster. French cinema too has had two cracks at telling the story: first with "The Judge" (1984) and then with "The Connection" ("La French" in French) in 2014.

In the French films, the hero is not a policeman but a magistrate, in "The Connection" played by played by Jean Dujardin, best known outside France for his performance in the silent film "The Artist". The role of the chief criminal is taken by Gilles Lelouche. There is a short scene where the two meet alone which is reminiscent of the cafe scene between Al Pacino and Robert de Niro in "Heat". "The Connection" is not one of the the classics like "The French Connection" and "Heat" but it is a stylish, if clichéd, thriller with hand-held camera-work and atmospheric soundtrack adding to the impact.