The French Connection (1971): review- 9/10

*

"That stuff is in that car"

Two narcotics police pursue a French based drug gang in New York and Washington. The film provides provides a magnificent tour of the seamier neighbourhoods of New York, in beautiful fleeting images. There are fine performances from Hackman as the downbeaten cop and from those he encounters: the scenes are often shot through with a certain Chandleresque wit.

Valdez is Coming (1971): review- 6/10

6/10

An aging sherrif, Valdez, has shot a wrong murder suspect: he approaches an unpleasant landowner for compensation for the suspect's widow.

Though solidly made, the film does not touch as it might because the standoff between Valdez and his landowner counterpart is not perfectly realised.

This might be because the landowner lacks the glamour that wicked characters need, or it could be because they do not mirror each other sufficiently, and the film therefore lacks moral complexity.

The Panic in Needle Park (1971): review- 2/10

A drug pusher-junkie (who chews gum continually) manages to seduce a young artist into his druggie lifestyle.

It is quite impossible to see what this female character finds in the Al Pacino character and so the film seems to be more an essay in moralism than a study of real relationships.

Gloomy and considerably too long, with zero chracter development and virtually no plot.