The Blu-ray edition of The French Connection is due next month, so director William Friedkin is making the rounds, talking up the film and reminding people he’s still employable. The Independent helps him make his case by crediting Connection with influencing everything from The Wire to Grand Theft Auto IV. “Roughly a third of the way through, gamers are faced with a mission, the Puerto Rican Connection, which emulates the famous chase scene at the heart of Friedkin's thriller,” writes James Mottram. “Commandeering a car, just as Gene Hackman's rogue cop "Popeye" Doyle does, you are asked to trail a target, who boards an elevated train, through the streets of Liberty City (the GTA version of New York)…Unsurprisingly, the 73-year-old Friedkin hasn't played the game, let alone completed the mission, but he doesn't seem concerned that the film that launched his career has been ripped off.”
“Joel Surnow, who created 24, told me he was most influenced by The French Connection,” Friedkin notes, and indeed, until now I had forgotten about the amnesiac cougar subplot in the 1971 Best Picture winner.
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