The Connection (2014)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Connection (2014) – C. Jimenez

So, this film was a bit like a fast food meal – you’ve had it before, you know what it tastes like, it’s pleasing when it goes down, but then you aren’t really completely satisfied feeling a bit like you shouldn’t have eaten it. A French version of The French Connection or at least a version of the law enforcement challenge of taking down that big heroin ring in the’70s that saw Marseilles serving as the middleman between Turkish poppies and American consumers.  Jean Dujardin is charismatic as the magistrate in charge of the investigation and Gilles Lellouche is suitably unsavoury (but not without some sympathetic notes) as the drug kingpin, but damn if the whole script isn’t full of clichés.  I guess we could just chalk it up to this being a genre pic and leave it at that (the prosecutor that risks all, neglected wife who threatens to leave, the villain who is vaguely noble but not coping well with the heat, the possible rats within the ranks of the cops).  But despite the vaguely stimulating Scorsese-like moves (i.e., with pop music and travelling cameras) things ultimately end up a bit flat and then I’m hungry again.