THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971) **1/2 The critics have been going on about how great Gene Hackman is in this film for more than 30 years now, but the reality is that he's damn near always great-I'd rate this performance near the middle of his canon. Roy Scheider isn't always quite this much of a badass, but it's not unprecedented either. William Friedkin does an excellent job on the stakeouts, shot casually and from unexpected vantage points the viewer is made to feel like a voyeur; much like, for example, the cops on the stakeout. A sense of realism permeates it all, but my favorite part is the hard funk jam that plays every time they enter the black bar. How dare honkeys in dumb hats interrupt such a group of artists at play? How can they possibly think that it's any of their fucking business at all? Exhibit A for the movement for dress codes based on aesthetics. All that waste of time and resources, unnecessarily putting innocent people at risk, recklessness and wrongdoing in the furtherance of "crime detection," can anyone frame a sensible argument that they're accomplishing anything worthwile that treatment wouldn't?