Rijndri
Load of rubbish!!
SparkMore
n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.
Wyatt
There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.
xavimc60
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.
jadavix
"The Connection" is a dull crime flick with many of the usual clichés, eg. a cop who can't do what he needs to do to catch the bad guy because of the bureaucracy in his way, and his obsession with the case straining his home life and making his wife leave him. How many times have we seen these things, and through the lens of a wobbly camera to boot? The main character is a cliché and it is impossible to care anything about him. Instead I felt sorry for the actor trying his darnedest with material so trite.In one scene the cops arrest a guy who was just about the kill the bad guy for them. The movie doesn't even acknowledge this. It's like it's on a completely different page to the viewer. If you were police after a crimelord, and you had to stop someone you knew was probably going to kill the crimelord and himself in the process, wouldn't you be a bit frustrated that the constraints of your job stopped you from letting one problem solve another? Wouldn't the crimelord express mocking gratitude? This was a point of connection with the audience the movie squanders completely.One of the few interesting points in this movie is that the actor playing the good guy and the actor playing the bad guy look almost identical. I couldn't tell them apart. They have the same features, same haircut, everything. The bad guy is slightly shorter than the good guy. That was my only way of telling them apart.As for telling the movie apart from any other cops vs criminals movie, you're on your own.
Tom Dooley
This is the other half of the story of seventies classic - 'The French Connection. Jean Dujardin ('The Artist') plays Magistrate Pierre Michel who in 1974 gets promoted to deal with organised crime in Marseilles. Gilles Lellouche ('Mea Culpa' and 'Mesrine') plays the drugs uber lord 'Tany' – who rules with an iron fist and any other implement that can come to hand. He runs a crime network that includes night clubs, casinos and restaurants and will do anything to keep what he has and make tons more cashThis is one of those times when crims made so much money that they could buy their way out of trouble – even before they were in it. So inevitably Michel has more than the crooks to do battle with. It follows the story from the mid seventies and into the eighties and it is one helluva ride.The period detail is excellent, the cars, fashions and the music are all spot one – even the decor. There is violence and plenty of potty mouth goings on, but it is all in context. It is also a stylish film that means that most shots are great to look at as well as being intensely entertaining. This is a film that should get a lot more attention and if you are a stranger to French cinema it may be a good one to start with to see just how well they can make them.
jdesando
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.
