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This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Just perfect...

I wanted to but couldn't!

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

THE CONNECTION is a gritty slice of French crime which, as the title would suggest, is based on much the same story as the famous FRENCH CONNECTION by William Friedkin. The story follows a dedicated judge who makes it his business to bring down a heroin kingpin, played by the excellent Giles Lellouche, an actor I better known playing the hero in the likes of POINT BLANK and MEA CULPA. This is a downbeat film full of sudden bursts of violence and a very fast pace so that you never get bored by the familiarity of the genre ingredients. It's also gritty and realistic, and has a good balance between character relationships, plot, and breakneck thrills. It might not be the most original film out there, but it's a film which achieves what it seeks to do, and it's a solid, engaging achievement.

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.

Solid French cinema- this would be the ultra-short version. Even though the movie is being categorised as action and a thriller, in reality it is more of a drama and a biopic. Set in the time frame of 1975 to 1981 it details the struggle between the French police and the the mob. What is now commonly known as the French Connection (the way drugs were smuggled from Turkey to Marseille, refined and repacked there and then shipped off to the U.S.), serves as the backdrop for this movie. On the one hand there is the gang of mobsters (hence the name La French) on the other a special task force dealing with organised crime. Pierre Michel, a magistrate attached to this task force, goes all in to battle the current boss 'Tany' Zampa.But as said, it's not a flashy action flick. Michele is portrayed as a driven, obsessed man - it is implied that he had some gambling problems in the past - who seems to be actually trying to catch the 'bad guys'. During the entirety of the movie his determination is being shown as close to obsession as possible without too much cliché. It is obvious that his obsession will get him into trouble, sooner or later.The entire main cast does its best to stay focused on portraying 'normal' people- with all the rational and irrational thinking that drives us. Dujardin does well in his role, even though I found some scenes a bit 'too much'. I presume the director wanted to capture as much of the emotional struggle as possible in those scenes. The movie is little over 2 hours, so IMO a few more minutes to elaborate on the emotional stress magistrate Michele was going through, would have served the movie well.There is some action here and there, but it's neither flashy, nor heroic. It's the simple, realistic depiction of action and some graphic violence, or rather its absence, that adds to the movie. As said before, the movie is more of a drama, more focused on the characters involved and their struggles. It's one of the movies where even the antagonists have some sort of inner emotional cosmos one can actually relate to.The movie in its entirety is sombre, a bit bleak and some parts (especially the last 10 mins) have almost a cynical undertone to them. In general there are only a few lighter parts. And that all while being filmed in southern France, ie. it's almost sunny all the time- some shots underline this contrast very nicely: Michele and Zampa meet on an outcrop while the sun is slowly setting in the background. All those little bits and pieces add up to very solid drama; no light fare, to be sure. Give it a go if you're into Eurocinema.

This story, inspired by actual events that occurred in Marseilles, has already been told in the early eighties: LE JUGE, starring Jacques Perrin, as the lead character. Well, this one is more ambitious, starring Jean Dujardin, Gilles Lelouche and Benoit Magimel as a supporting character. Those three are great figures of the new french crime movie industry. This tale takes place in Marseilles, South of France, during the mid seventies, and describes the dog fight, the terrific struggle between a hard boiled, ruthless, untouchable judge against a no less ambitious, greedy, smart and fierce drug ring leader. Jean Dujardin plays the judge and Gilles Lelouche his Némésis. The sequence between the two of them is outstanding, although it never occurred in real life. Curiously, in this movie, audiences may feel empathy for the judge but for the gangster as well. No real hero or true villain here. And I loved another gripping scene, the one with Dujardin in a phone booth, begging his wife - the beautiful Celine Salette - to come back to him. This scene was improvised by Dujardin.