The French Connection, as seen from the French view, in Cédric Jimenez's THE CONNECTION

Same decade, same drugs, but mostly a different location (though we do get one scene that takes place in New York City), THE CONNECTION (called La French in its home country) takes us back to those thrilling days of yesteryear (Marseilles, 1975) as a single French police magistrate (played by Jean Dujardin) attempts to get the goods on a prime drug trafficker (Gilles Lellouche). Messieurs Dujardin and Lellouche have worked together several times now -- most uproariously and cleverly in The Players, which can be streamed digitally via Netflix and elsewhere -- and they make quite a team: French hunks who also possess a load of talent, with the former here portraying the good hunk, and the latter the bad.

As co-written (with Audrey Diwan) and directed by Cédric Jimenez (shown at left), this 135-minute movie does not exactly speed along but neither does it lag. The Connection simply lays out its tale, stringing together incident after connected incident, until at last the payoff arrives. If it is much less gritty (though a half-hour longer) than its American counter-part, The French Connection (the new film is said to be telling a similar tale from the European viewpoint), it is also much less flashy, though full of more beautiful scenery. Both films are fairly "surface" -- a necessity, I think, when dealing with this particular sub-genre (drugs) of the crime movie.

In between the various set-ups and "hits," we get an occasional few moments of "feeling" -- as when our magistrate (Dujardin, above) tries to get one of his drug-fueled informants to go straight and later pays his respects to her family, post-overdose. For his part, Mr. Drug King (Lellouche, below) has a few thoughtful moments, too, though not enough nor as deep to make him actually question his life-style or from where and how he obtains same.

There's a scene -- not particularly believable, but fun -- midway along in which our twosome face each other down only to bid each other adieu until a later day. The fact that these two actors look look so similar -- in body type, hair and skin coloring, even somewhat facially -- makes their pairing much the more interesting, and they and their director use this similarity quietly but effectively.

While this is, of course, mostly a man's movie -- that's Guillaume Gouix, above, as the clever law-enforcement rookie -- the females are given their minor moments, with Céline Sallette (below), as Dujardin's long-suffering wife (as usual in this genre) and Mélanie Doutey as the barely-seen spouse of our drug lord.

Prominent in the cast is another French notable, Benoît Magimel (below), who seems to have gone from a hot and sexy, young leading man to a first-class character actor in what looks (to us in America, at least) like the blink of an eye. Here, Magimel plays "The Wolf," whose unrestrained libido and violence, not to mention his surprisingly bullet-resistant body and head, helps bring things to a boil.

As I say, if you appreciate a decent policier/thriller, by all means take a look at The Connection. Full of lovely scenery, interesting architecture and camera angles, crack performances and enough violence to sate the current mainstream art crowd, it'll get you where you want to go.

The film's handling of its time-frame -- the 1970s -- is very well-done, too. Most everything, from the cars to the clothes to the large and clunky mobile phones with the long antennae (below), seems correct without having to scream "nostalgia!", as certain movies prefer to do it.

One thing you may wonder throughout, however -- particularly if you've watched as many Italian Mafia/drug movies as I -- is why, since we are dealing with some Italian mobsters here, they have not simply and more promptly wiped out their law enforcement antagonists. Well, this movie takes place mostly in France, where this is not, perhaps, quite so easily done. Never fear: By the end of our journey, France has become much closer to Italy in ways we might prefer were otherwise.

The Connection -- from Drafthouse Films, in French with English subtitles -- makes its American theatrical debut in Santa Barbara at the Plaza d'Oro this Wednesday, May 13, then opens in New York City and Los Angeles at, respectively Landmark's Sunshine Cinema and The Landmark on Friday, May 15. Over the weeks to come it will open all across the country. Click here and scroll down to see currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.  

THE CONNECTION: Shirley Clarke's grubby classic returns to sport spiffy, silvery sheen

Milestone has done it again. The company that keeps turning out major restorations, with the help of the UCLA Film & Television Archive, of major (or minor, depending on how you view them) works of cinema -- from Araya to Rogosin, The Exiles to The Edge of the World -- has a new one opening tomorrow in New York City, fifty years from the time it first appeared, only to be shut down by the New York City Police Department. At the time of its debut in October of 1962, THE CONNECTION, directed by Shirley Clarke, from the stage play by Jack Gelber, was already a cause célèbre. Back in those days, the play itself was considered raw and real -- too raw and real for the more popular, affordable and accessible entertainment offered by the movies. (This was prior to the creation of our current and ever-ridiculous ratings board.)

At the time of the film's initial release TrustMovies was a very young man who had arrived in New York the month previous to begin drama school. He missed opening day and didn't see the film until it was once again allowed to be shown, at which point, that "raw and real" subject mater -- a group of junkies, including some fine jazz musicians, sitting around a dilapidated cold-water flat waiting for a fix from their connection who, unlike Godot, really does show up to service the guys -- did indeed seem shocking and much more frank than anything he had seen up until then. That's about all he remembers of the film -- except that the print did not seem particularly good. Certainly nothing like the gorgeous one we saw at the press screening of The Connection at the IFC Center, where the film opens this Friday, May 4th. (Is that even possible? That today's restoration might look better than the film projected at the time of the initial release?) The dismal apartment that is the set of the film still looks like shit, but the film itself -- all silvery sheen and so many lustrous shades of grey that you want to lick them off the screen -- is a jewel.

Are we now so carelessly used to watching DVDs at home and digital projection in theaters that we can be so easily shocked into renewed appreciation by something this beautiful? (This restoration is up there with the best of them -- like Rogosin's On The Bowery.) Past the film beauty on display, however, The Connection, as is true of a number of these restored films, has not been treated kindly by the passing of time. Gelber's play and Clarke's film of it is a kind of play-within-a-play/movie-within-a-movie that posits a filmmaker/journalist (William Redfield, above) and his crew making a documentary about these guys and their "habits."

What may have seemed like stark realism in the 1960s comes off now as not a little pompous and "arty." And Gelber's writing, which again, seemed so honest and pointed at the time can sound awfully "theatrical" now, with some of the more "dramatic" moments resounding as the least real. The apartment's owner, Leach (played by a terrific William Finnerty, above) is afflicted with a boil on his neck that pains him no end. It's a very theatrical boil, however, and the actor is often referencing it to huge dramatic effect. Just when we're thinking, "Will somebody please pop the damn thing so we and this poor actor can move on!", somebody does, and we do.

Fortunately, four of the junkies are musicians, so we get a nice dose of jazz (a form of music I appreciate much more now than when I first saw the film). Nearly half the cast is black, and though civil rights had barely begun to make its mark in our country by 1962, you can feel the shimmering beginnings in this film. Gelber, Clarke and the cast show us how things were, with just a hint of what's to come. The strongest character in the play/film is Cowboy (played by Carl Lee, below), the titular connection who provides a little bit of heaven -- drug-wise -- along with philosophy, strength and cynicism for his crew.

Clarke put together a grand crew of her own to man the film, with some movie greats doing great work. Arthur J. Ornitz (Serpico) was cinematographer, Albert Brenner (The Pawnbroker, The Hustler) did the art direction, and Richard Sylbert (with dozens of classic films to his credit) handled the production design. The still below gives you a sense of what was achieved by these three.

For her part Clarke has Ornitz's camera constantly prowling the apartment; she's seldom still, and her movement keeps us enrapt. At 103 minutes, the film still feels a tad too long for what it has to say. Yet, in its way, it is so visually stunning, I don't think you'll mind sitting, listening and looking. Then, too, there's all that jazz.

As I noted above, The Connection, from Milestone Films, opens Friday, May 4, at the IFC Center in New York City (and elsewhere, I hope?) -- with a promise of the institutional DVD and home DVD release available this coming winter, 2013.