The Connection

The drug operation called “The French Connection,” in which heroin was transported from Marseilles to New York, was famously treated from the American perspective by William Friedkin in his Oscar-winning 1971 thriller. Here, filmmaker Cédric Jimenez tells the story on the other side of the Atlantic, depicting the struggle between the head of the Marseilles mob and a principled police magistrate who is determined to bring his operation down. Zampa (Gilles Lellouche) is a teetotaler and family man, but also a volatile and brutal leader who doesn't hesitate to order hits or threaten underlings in his gang, which smuggles heroin into Europe from Turkey, where it is processed in clandestine labs, and then shipped to the U.S. for sale to the American mafia (with assistance from crooked cops and politicians). Attempts to halt the operation falter until Pierre Michel (Jean Dujardin), an honest judge (which, in France, can also be a prosecutor building a case against a defendant) is transferred to the organized crime unit, where he shakes up the squad while adopting envelope-pushing methods. The Connection works reasonably well as a simple police procedural (although American audiences might need a mini-course in the French judicial system to understand what's going on), but it lacks the visceral excitement of Friedkin's classic. A strong optional purchase. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include a “making-of” featurette (51 min.), deleted scenes (7 min.), trailers, a 20-page booklet with cast and crew interviews, and a bonus digital copy of the film. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a lukewarm drug trafficking thriller.] (F. Swietek)