Skip to footer

'The Connection' is watchable but all too predictable

( R ) ( Monitor Movie Guide )

'The Connection' fills in the French back story to 'The French Connection,' centering on the newly appointed magistrate (Jean Dujardin).

|
Jerome Mace/Courtesy of Drafthouse Films
Detective Pierre Michel (Oscar® Winner Jean Dujardin) in Drafthouse Films’ crime thriller The Connection.
  • By Peter Rainer Film critic

Set in Marseille in the 1970s at the height of the heroin trade, “The Connection” fills in the French back story to “The French Connection.” 

 Jean Dujardin plays real-life Pierre Michel, the newly appointed magistrate trying to shut down the heroin connection; his nemesis is crime boss Gaetan Zampa (Gilles Lellouche), who roughs up his underlings but, when they get rubbed out, pays for a fancy funeral. 

Director Cédric Jimenez has the finesse of a Hollywood slickster. From scene to scene “The Connection” is never less than watchable, although it is also never less than predictable. He overdoes the two-sides-of-the-same-coin simpatico between Pierre and Gaetan – they even look alike – and he is altogether too enamored of the allure of crime. This is a common problem in crime-centric movies: The bad guys are almost always more fascinating than the good guys. He needn’t have worried here. Dujardin’s bull-necked, hard-charging performance makes Pierre a worthy adversary. He gives righteousness some muscle tone. Grade: B (Rated R for strong violence, drug content, and language.)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to 'The Connection' is watchable but all too predictable
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Movies/2015/0522/The-Connection-is-watchable-but-all-too-predictable
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe