In December of 2019, A24 unleashed an anxiety attack of a crime thriller, Uncut Gems, from up-and-coming director duo Josh and Benny Safdie. The film’s release burst the Safdie Brothers from the streets of the New York indie scene into filmmaker stardom, with Benny riding their newfound fame into acting roles in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza (2021), the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022), and Christopher Nolan’s upcoming biopic Oppenheimer (2023).

The Safdie Brothers’ relentless cinéma vérité approach to Uncut Gems won them praise from critics and filmgoers alike. In one sold-out screening of Gems in the Seattle area, the auditorium house lights cue accidentally came on twenty minutes early. But the audience sat in absolute silence until the credits rolled, too mesmerized by the film to alert the cinema’s staff. One element critical to the film’s ability to literally paralyze filmgoers in their seats was the Safdies’ collaboration with the film’s star.

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Uncut Gems contained an electric central performance from Adam Sandler as “Howard Rattner” (a.k.a. “Howie Bling”), a Jewish New York City jeweler on a downward spiral of gambling addiction even more horrifying than that of Harvey Keitel’s character in Abel Ferrara’s 1992 film, Bad Lieutenant (which was an influence on The Safdies). Critics considered the role of Rattner to be the finest of Sandler’s career; though his lead role as Barry Egan in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2002 film Punch-Drunk Love is a serious runner-up (and another influence on The Brothers).

Adam Sandler Is Returning for the Safdie Brothers’ Next Film

     A24 

In spite of all the buzz around his performance, Sandler was not nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, one of the Academy’s most blatant snubs in recent years. But if recent developments are any indication, it seems that “Sandman” (as the Safdies and others call him) might have another shot at Oscar gold. Earlier this year, Sandler confirmed to EW that he planned to reunite with the Safdie Brothers on their next film, saying:

Last week Sandler confirmed to Vanity Fair during an interview on the Little Gold Men podcast that this follow-up to Uncut Gems will begin shooting late in the winter of 2023. However, Sandler stopped short of spilling any plot details. Thus far, the Brothers have also been ziplipped, leaving fans of Uncut Gems to anxiously await any upcoming announcements and speculate: “What kind of film are Sandler and the Safdie Brothers going to make next?”

After the release of Good Will Hunting (1997), director Gus Van Sant faced a moment of anticipation comparable to that which the Safdies now face. In 1997, the movie world was his oyster, and the press wanted to know: “What kind of film is Gus Van Sant going to make next?” They soon had their answer: Gus Van Sant wanted to make a shot-for-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). Only in color. And that’s exactly what he did with his version of Psycho (1998) starring Vince Vaughn, Julianne Moore, and the late Anne Heche, who incidentally died this summer after her car crashed into a residential home.

Could the Safdie Brothers be taking a page out of Gus Van Sant’s book and using this post-Gems moment to remake one of their favorite films, The French Connection (1971)?

The Safdie Brothers Listed The French Connection as One of Their Favorite Films

     20th Century Fox

Just over fifty years ago, William Friedkin’s hit and Oscar-sweeping film, The French Connection, dropped into American movie houses like a cinéma vérité atom bomb. Based on Robin Moore’s 1969 nonfiction book of the same name, the film stars Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider as a pair of real-life NYPD police detectives uncovering a French heroin smuggling ring. Inspired by the gritty documentary realism from political thrillers like The Battle of Algiers (1966) and Z (1969), Friedkin shot French Connection with a handheld camera that gives The Hunger Games (2012) a run for its money.

To add to its documentary realism, Friedkin and cinematographer Owen Roizman stuck with natural light sources, abandoning glamorous Hollywood lighting. They intentionally made it look like crap, capturing the garbage-lined streets of New York City at the height of 1970s urban decay, something Todd Philips had to recreate for Joker (2019).

French Connection contains one of cinema’s greatest car chases wherein Hackman’s character drives through busy intersections beneath an elevated train. The editing of the car chase (and the entire film) is borderline schizophrenic. Friedkin “stole” many of the shots, shooting without obtaining the proper permits. So when it looks like the car almost crashed into oncoming traffic, that’s because it actually almost crashed into oncoming traffic. The Safdie Brothers were so influenced by Friedkin’s cinéma vérité approach that they, too, have become known for “stealing shots.” Benny Safdie told Far Out Magazine:

A Remake of The French Connection Could Revise the Original’s Racial Politics

     20th Century Fox 

The French Connection took home Best Picture at the 44th Academy Awards. Hackman won Best Actor. Friedkin, Best Director. It also took home Best Editor and Best Cinematography. It was one of North America’s highest-grossing films of 1971. The film is considered a landmark in New Hollywood Cinema. Spielberg studied it before making Munich (2005). If the bar is that high, then why would the Safdie Brothers want to touch it? Or any director, for that matter?

Iconic car chases aside, modern audiences cannot see Friedkin’s film for what it was back in the early ’70s without hitting one big speed bump: racial politics. Not only is Hackman’s antihero unapologetically racist, it’s essentially the only character trait Fridekin gives his protagonist other than a pitbull persistence on the beat. It’s not so much that audiences of today would reject racist cops as antiheroes (though they may have trouble rooting for them). The deeper issue is the film’s ambiguity toward its antihero. There is zero pushback when Hackman’s character barks abusive language at an entire bar full of African Americans.

The Safdie Brothers have waded into racial waters to a lesser extent in their film that preceded Uncut Gems. Robert Pattinson starred in Good Time (2017) as a criminal white boy (in the vein of Breaking Bad’s Jesse Pinkman) whose recklessness caused the people of color around him to deal with the consequences. In a French Connection remake with Sandler in Hackman’s role, The Safdies could explore its racial politics through a modern lens as they did in Good Time.