Police puissance 7

When you put this film and the French Connection together you'll see that the French Connection is just too good to compared to The Seven Ups. That doesn't mean this film isn't worth seeing. It just means don't expect the French Connection when you see this...cause you won't get it.

The Seven Ups has all the earmarks of a 70's Cop film. Corruption, Rogue cops and the mafia all rolled up into one. It has that stark landscape feel from the 70's. How gritty and grimy that decade was and you feel it throughout the entire film.

What this film has is the absolute best car chase in film IMO. Sure you can throw Bullitt and The French Connection in there...heck even Ronin had a wicked good car chase but when you want a real white knuckle car chase you just have to see the one in this film. You feel like your right in the middle of it. And the end of it...if you've never seen this film then you'll jump at the end of the chase. Wow what a great end to a chase.

Take this film with other great films of the 70's like Serpico or Dog Day afternoon and even the French Connection and see why the 70's was the greatest decade for cop films. Real stories real stunts = a solid decade.

One of my favorites. As a child, growing up in the NY Metro area in the late 60s and early 70s, I was often afforded the opportunity to visit NYC with my grandfather or father, as they conducted business there. The gritty, bustling, human, reality of that city, particularly in winter, have stayed with me.

This film very aptly captures the stark, cold, matter-of-fact feel of the NYC winter season, while keenly exposing the underbelly of the region's infamous underworld of crime and policing. A great snapshot of a place and a time and a culture.

And the car chase is simply amazing. At least on par with the one in "Bullitt", and surpassing the chase in "The French Connection". I can watch, time and again, as the suspension comes unstuck on that Plymouth Fury police cruiser barreling toward the GW Bridge in pursuit, as it lurches into that sharp right curve, bouncing and scraping into oncoming traffic. The stunt driving coordinator for that scene did "Bullitt" and "The French Connection" as well as many other noatable movie chases. Good acting, too, and a decent plot line. The musical score is edgy and compelling, and the cinematography and direction are top notch. A great, if underrated 1970s cop drama. A keeper. Not out on DVD yet, though.

Comparable in style and content to: The French Connection and Super Fly. Early 1970's cop dramas set in the bleak NYC winter months.

This is not a great movie, but it evokes a time and a place, and a style that goes along with it. A gritty 70's police drama, it takes place in a New York winter of gray skies, bare trees, wet gutters, litter and graffiti, when the crooks had no cell phones, cars smelled of vinyl and exhaust fumes, and the computer was the noisy thing that printed the suspect's rap sheet on a roll of yellow paper. The acting, it must be admitted, is routine, but Roy Scheider and the rest portray an undercover squad of calm professionals to whom danger has become routine. The story manages to be interesting, punctuated by one exciting Popeye Doyle style car chase through the Sunday streets (judging by the light traffic) and up the Taconic State Parkway, and two nerve-wracking scenes in the belly of an automatic car wash. But for all the occasional bursts of violence, it's also a quiet story of a friendship that can't withstand the temptations of crime.

It is now clear that the true golden age of American film was from the mid-60s until just before the release of Star Wars. Before then, there was too much Hays Code-constricted pap. With Star Wars, the green light was lit for most films to be directed at children and morons, a practice which continues to this day. THE SEVEN-UPS, truth be told, contains a couple hackneyed lines of dialogue -- "We can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way" is one -- but I'm damned if I can find anything else wrong with it. (In fact, that line may not even have been stale when this film was made.) THE SEVEN-UPS demonstrates all that was right with the best films of the golden age: sparse dialogue, realistic acting, real locations (winter in a dirty New York has never looked better/worse), propulsive stories, and, yes, the best car chase ever filmed. Bill Hickman is the driver Scheider is chasing (you will recognize him from Bullitt), and the structure of the chase is fairly similar to the McQueen one, but I prefer Scheider's facial intensity here, the pacing, the terrific close-ups of the schoolchildren, and the shattering conclusion. (That VW bug going about 2 mph always bothers me in the Bullitt chase.) A stringy, screechy score by Don Ellis sets the perfect mood. THE SEVEN UPS: bleak, grim, action-oriented, grown-up. This is a film that couldn't be made today; there's no "gimmick" for the kiddies or preposterous ending. Thank you, Philip D'Antoni, Roy Scheider and Tony Lo Bianco: for as long as cop films are watched, THE SEVEN-UPS and its 1970s brethren (e.g., THE FRENCH CONNECTION), will set the standard.

What an underrated flick. Great action.Great tension.The only thing (you could ask for) would have been Friedkin directing it. I know, I know. Same year as Exorcist. Still... One comment which was made referred to the plot being confusing which I slightly agree with. Friedkin might have cracked the whip on that part. I always thought you could do a lot of different things in a car wash. And Moon!!! Thank God for Richard Lynch. What an actor.And the driver. He should have acted more. Great menace.With those little glasses. Also underrated is Roy. He never got his due. He should have won for All That Jazz. FC II is great, but this is too overlooked. p.s. AVOID THE NEW EXORCIST. Wait for Schraeder DVD.