William Friedkin's gritty police drama portrays two tough New York City cops trying to intercept a huge heroin shipment coming from France. An interesting contrast is established between 'Popeye' Doyle, a short-tempered alcoholic bigot who is nevertheless a hard-working and dedicated police officer, and his nemesis Alain Charnier, a suave and urbane gentleman who is nevertheless a criminal and one of the largest drug suppliers of pure heroin to North America. During the surveillance and eventual bust, Friedkin provides one of the most gripping and memorable car chase sequences ever filmed.

From IMDB:

10/10

An Action Film Classic

Gene Hackman and Roy Schneider star in this action drama thriller about the life of two New York City policemen that hunt down drug dealers based on the non-fiction novel written by Robin Moore entitled The French Connection.This was based on the real lives of Narcotics Detectives Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso. William Friedkin directed this 70's film that won five Academy Awards.

Alain Charnier is a French drug kingpin who distributes a big percentage of drugs in New York City.He's got a hired killer and a right-hand man in Nicoli. New York City detectives, Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle and Buddy "Cloudy" Russo starts to do their investigation by putting a surveillance on Sal Boca and his wife,Angie,who are living extravagantly despite having a corner store that does not earn that much.Later,they found out that the couple do work for Charnier,who smuggles $32 million worth of heroin from France into the city.Both Popeye and Cloudy try to put a stop to these illegal acts to put a stop into the drug problem of New York.

This definitely deserves the highest rating of 10/10. Despite the movie being more than 40 years since it was initially released, we get to see that the issue of narcotics remain a big problem in the country today.The process of putting a stop to Charnier was definitely told with lots of gritty realism.Aside from that,we also get to see interesting characters who are the good guys of the film with a lot of character flaws.It was definitely unusual back in the 70's to see heroes like Popeye to be violent,racist and having a mean- spirit.Aside from that,it was definitely full of violent scenes that would still excite many viewers of today.And what about the ending?That was really something considering we see the drug kingpin escape from the detectives to the bitterness of Popeye.No question that the performances of the film are worthy of an Academy Award especially Gene Hackman as Popeye and it deserves the Oscar for Best Picture in 1972 for the story was told in a fast-paced and the chase sequences were definitely explosive and full of suspense.
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