A more fluent, less strenuously hard-boiled crime flick than The
French Connection, with Petersen's determined cop out to get elusive
counterfeiter Dafoe. It could easily be a Michael Mann film, with its
neon-soaked LA setting, synthesiser score, and Manhunter's intense
leading man - it certainly treads the same obsessive territory as that
director's Thief and Heat. The themes don't work as well in Friedkin's
hands, but this is still among his less vacuous films, and really
surprises you in the final reel. Dafoe gets one of his best early roles;
Robby Muller's lensing is the star attraction.
