One of the most brilliant, iconoclastic elements of the Oscar-winning The French Connection is that its central figure, Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman), is a lousy cop. And no, not just incompetent. Though he’s that, in spades. He’s also blindingly racist, absurdly reckless, and childishly impulsive right down to his marrow. Far from adopting the anti-hero Dirty Harry’s twisted, but still principled measures (fighting a corrupt system that springs violent felons, say), Popeye simply doesn’t give two shits about doing his job with any respect for the law he claims to uphold. And if he has to shoot a suspect in the back, fire willy-nilly into crowds, or circumvent warrants, so much the better. And by the end, when he murders a fellow officer in cold blood simply because he couldn’t wait the 1.5 seconds to identify the man, well, so much the better. We’re not even altogether sure this is about solving the drug problem. Or cleaning up NYC’s filthy streets. Popeye just wants to use his badge to do whatever the fuck he pleases.
We know this with absolute certainty when, during what is typically a throwaway scene but here, acts to take full measure of the man, Popeye spots an attractive female on a bicycle, pulls close, and follows her with lascivious intent. Cut to the next morning. The woman has not only stayed the night, she’s helped him turn the dingy apartment into a war zone. For good measure, she’s also secured his leg to the bed with his own handcuffs. What Popeye wants, he gets, and if he eyed law enforcement during his younger years, it’s only because it afforded him the best and most reliable opportunity to get laid. Or harass minorities. Or prove his own sagging manhood again and again with sad predictability.
The cops of yesteryear – square jaws, crisp uniforms, righteous intent – have now given way (in full) to the Popeye Generation. These men, far from rescuing cats in trees or escorting little old ladies across the street, now haven’t the decency to notice bleeding corpses at their feet. Or care one whit for a new mom who’s been gunned down in front of her baby. Because of him, mind you. Render aid? Not bloody likely. He has a rat to chase. And kill, without so much as a hint of Miranda. Even that famous car chase, still the best ever captured on film, is less about titillation and kinetic power than a further deep dive into Popeye’s insanity. He crashes, careens, roars, and damn near kills another new mom in the process. Is it worth it? For this one assassin-to-be? Clearly not, but for him, it’s everything. He’d destroy a world to prove a point.
Some might argue that Popeye’s shoe leather approach to policing – hitting the bars, long nights with headphones, acting on hunches – is what’s missed in our own time, what with the push for effete sociologists to now accompany armed cops on mental health calls, but more than a strategy, it’s simply one man believing the ends more than justify the means. And yes, innocent bystanders factor into that cynical calculation. But as stated, the law is just an afterthought; an abstraction that he considers from time to time when he has to fill out paperwork, but for his purpose, this is and must remain a lawless jungle. Popeye no more wants a safe and sound Big Apple than he does a wife and family. If it all went straight, he’d likely leap from the tallest building in disgust.
Okay, then. A monster of a man among the pantheon of greatness? Not greatness, friend. Consequence. Because Popeye changed the game. Shifted the conversation. Moved us to a more honest, insightful time. After all, in The French Connection, bad guys not only get away clean, they aren’t even bad guys. Not really. The cops, in this instance, are as rotten as those they surveil. Likely more so. Sure, Alain Charnier (crudely labeled Frog One by the dimwitted Popeye) deals heroin and remains dry-eyed in the face of track marks and broken lives, but he’s a man of culture. Sophistication. He understands a fine meal firmly insisted upon. Meanwhile, Popeye eats greasy street pizza and guzzles ulcer-inducing coffee by the gallon. This doesn’t make him a populist hero, it makes him a bumpkin. And again, thank the cinematic stars for it. Without anyone to root for, we can focus exclusively on craft. And Hackman nails it in every single frame.
Yes, it comes down to Gene. As it usually does in this life. Here, in 1971, he gladly embraced a man of complexity and contradiction; an asshole we shouldn’t be able to stand for five minutes yet want to follow into whatever hell he’s taking us. A nasty brute without a redeeming quality of any kind, yet arguably the one character of the period who deserves canonization. A peek behind the curtain of power, three years before it was pulled aside in full during Watergate. Up until this point, suspicions, yes, even a fact or two. Now, confirmation. Those acting on our behalf, those protecting and serving, as they say, are utter scumbags. Untrustworthy at best, sinister and corrupt as a matter of course. And Popeye led the way. Yes, he’d plant evidence. Yes, he’d separate you from your teeth for jaywalking. And no, he’s not at all interested in your rights under the Constitution. Humorless, mindless; fanaticism incarnate. America, with the lights turned on.
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