Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
Newly transferred to the bustling port city of Marseille to assist with a crackdown on organized crime, energetic young magistrate Pierre Michel is given a rapid-fire tutorial on the ins and outs of an out-of-control drug trade. Pierre's wildly ambitious mission is to take on the French Connection, a highly organized operation that controls the city's underground heroin economy and is overseen by the notorious —and reputedly untouchable— Gaetan Zampa. Fearless, determined and willing to go the distance, Pierre plunges into an underworld world of insane danger and ruthless criminals.
The Connection is a competent, well-crafted French crime thriller that covers familiar biopic-procedural territory. The story of magistrate Pierre Michel vs. drug lord Zampa is engaging and well-paced, but follows a well-worn template of real-crime dramatizations. Acting from Jean Dujardin and Gilles Lellouche is solid and committed, though not transformative. Cinematography captures period Marseille with decent style but doesn't push boundaries. Novelty suffers because the film treads ground already mapped by countless crime procedurals and is itself a deliberate French-side companion piece to The French Connection; it offers little that is cinematically distinctive. The ending, being true to real events, carries genuine weight and pathos.