Movie review: This French ‘Connection' is a bit weak

It's a bit horse and buggy for a movie about horse, but "The Connection" delivers a mild buzz for folks nostalgic for crime classics like "The Godfather" and it's gritty cousin, "The French Connection."

Director Cedric Jimenez has obviously pored over both extensively, along with flicks by Michael Mann, Brian De Palma and Martin Scorsese.

Clearly, originality isn't his strong suit; neither is pacing. But Jimenez does know how to grip an audience with a slick-looking, fact-based police procedural that would feel right at home on any cable channel.

It also doesn't hurt having a cast topped by Oscar-winner Jean Dujardin ("The Artist"), as Pierre Michel, a tenacious Marseilles court magistrate bent on bringing down one of France's most-wanted heroin smugglers, Gaetan "Tany" Zampa (Gilles Lellouche). Both actors are superb in their parallel portrayals of driven men sharing more traits than either would care to acknowledge.

They even look alike, almost to the point of confusion. It's all part and parcel of the movie' s double-entendre title, which represents both the notorious drug peddling organization, the French Connection, and the bond that links Michel and Zampa despite being on opposite ends of the law.

Jimenez likes to think of "The Connection" as a sort of Gallic twist on how cooperation between French and American authorities ended the cartel's long, deadly reign. But he'd be wiser not trying to link his simply OK picture with a masterpiece like "The French Connection," considering the two have little in common beyond French gangsters serving as middlemen in the heroin pipeline running from Turkey to the U.S. East Coast in the years following World War II.

In fact, most of the French Connection had been dismantled by 1975, when this story is set.

The plot is about as urbane as "Walking Tall," with Michel serving as the much sauver, and infinitely more-French version of Buford Pusser; making a pest of himself around organized crime figures by rounding up their underlings and tossing them in jail while trying to figure out what to charge them with.

And like Pusser, Zampa and his crew will surely come looking for Michel, his beautiful wife, Jacqueline (Celine Sallette), and the couple's two adorable girls.

Jimenez and co-writer Audrey Diwan play it strictly by the police-procedural book, with few surprises and a plethora of melodramatic moments that elicit more chuckles than thrills. They also are weak on character development, but they ultimately do rote well, making the most of the cliches and cardboard characters.

Plus, how can you falter when you have the exquisite beauty of Marseilles to consistently fall back on? The film is simply gorgeous.

But it's also lazy, resting solely on Jimenez's stratagem to paint Zampa and Michel as doppelgangers. Both men are stubborn, unethical and running from their pasts. But to humanize them, both are also shown to be terrific husbands and fathers, as if that matters. What is pertinent is the buildup for when the pair finally come face-to-face, a la Pacino and De Niro in "Heat."

And Jimenez orchestrates the growing tension well … then blows it when that big meet ain't so sweet. The film, at 135 minutes, is also a bit of a grind on the glutes. Jimenez could have easily made it shorter and sleeker simply by axing the corny domestic stuff.

Still, it's worth sticking around, especially if you're unfamiliar with how the real-life Michel-Zampa feud came to an end. It's not about to make you forget Popeye Doyle, but it does score points for style and competence, especially on the part of the two leading men.

But patience is required if "The Connection" has any hope of being perceived as more than just another bust.

Movie review: "The Connection,"rated R for strong violence, drug content and language. Cast includes Jean Dujardin and Gilles Lellouche. Co-written and directed by Cedric Jimenez. In French with English subtitles. Grade: B-.