The Connection (Cédric Jimenez 2014)

and so anyway it turns out that the best thing about the French crime epic The Connection (2014) is not that after days spent jokingly calling it the French Connection you sit down to watch it and it turns out to be about the Marseille end of the investigation into the French ‘connection’ of The French Connection (Friedkin 1971) – indeed, its French title turns out to be La French – nor is it the stunning ability of a 135-minute film to have about 133 minutes of middle, no, the very best thing about The Connection is that by awarding Jean Dujardin – who you may know from The Artist (Hazanavicius 2011) and the OSS 117 films (Hazanavicius 2006, 2009) – such amazing 70s sideburns it manages to demonstrate my long-standing conviction of just how brilliant Leonard Rossiter would have been as Wolverine…