The Connection (2014)

aka: La French
Dir: Cedric Jimenez

'Loosely based on real events.'
Marsailles. 1975.

Police Magistrate Pierre Michel (Jean Dujardin THE ARTIST) is promoted from juvenile to organized crime in the city of Marseilles. A city under siege by the drug kingpins who use the port city to push heroin to New York. A city combating bloody murders, corruption and the human destruction that comes hand in hand with the filthy lucre to be had by peddling drugs. Pierre is a family man who is passionate (and a bit addicted to the euphoria of cracking a case) about cleaning up the streets as he has seen first hand the carnage that heroin causes. he turns his sights to Gaetan 'Tany' Zampa (Gilles Lellouche POINT BLANK), a drug kingpin who so far has been untouchable.

Tany, a teetotaler who punishes anyone in his organization who dares touch the product they sell, is a violent, cunning and ruthless sociopath who sees himself as a businessman providing a service. Dismissive at first of the new magistrate, in part due to the police and politicians in his back pocket, Tany slowly comes to the realization that Pierre is an honest cop and a force to be reckoned with. THE CONNECTION tells the tale from the perspective of the other side of the pond as William Friedkin's THE FRENCH CONNECTION during the mid 70's to early 80's. Like Popeye Doyle's obsession with closing the case at any cost in Friedkin's film, Pierre is fixated on seeing his adversary brought to justice even though it may cost him his wife and two young daughters. Beautifully shot and very immersive in the time period, at it's centre the film is a solid well acted entry into the cops and robbers genre that doesn't quite reach the bold and shocking grittiness of THE FRENCH CONNECTION.

*** out of ****