Castleton International Film Festival: The Connection

A companion piece of sorts to William Friedkin’s New York City–based classic The French Connection (1971), Cédric Jimenez’s high-energy true-crime tale tracks the six-year crusade of a law officer to bring down a seemingly untouchable drug kingpin. Police magistrate Pierre Michel (Jean Dujardin) has recently been transferred to Marseille, a city all but controlled by the ruthless gangster Gaëtan Zampa (Gilles Lelouche), who oversees an enormous heroin syndicate. Pierre is determined to destroy the drug lord’s operations and put him behind bars for good, a task that proves even more insurmountable once the policeman realizes how many of his colleagues are on Zampa’s payroll. In between the tense, superbly shot action sequences, The Connection focuses on the domestic life and the off-duty hours of its two principal antagonists, slyly suggesting that the cop and the crook may have more in common than either would have dared imagine. Dujardin, best known for his Oscar-winning performance as a silent movie star in The Artist (2011), plays magnificently against type in Jimenez’s thriller, a film that immerses us in the sights, sounds, and spectacles of the 1970s.