In this spin-off from the French Connection Roy Scheider is the leader of an elite team of cops (the titular soft drinks) who target high-profile crooks. New York's gangsters are being held to ransom by extortionists posing as the Seven-Ups and strike back against the cops.

Set against the bleak, imposing backdrop of early 70s New York, a time in which almost every building was decaying and all new architecture was a brutalist, concrete nightmare, the Seven-Ups is every bit as old school as it could possibly be. If you like the cold, paranoid atmosphere of movies like Ronin or the retro-style of Bullitt you'll definitely get a kick out of this.

Aesthetically, the film is horrific, with ugly people and bad fashion all over the place. It's an abomination of bad taste and degradation. But as a simple cop thriller it's got all the right moves. The stand-out car chase at the half-way point is quite impressive and it's a shame that it seems to have been forgotten among the ubiquitous "Best Car Chase" countdowns on TV and on the Internet.

Fans of the French Connection, cop thrillers or overlooked 70s movies that represent an attitude to filmmaking and life long since gone should definitely check it out.

From the man who brought cinema-goers 1968 "Bullit" and 1971 "The French Connection", Philip D'Antoni goes on to produce, but also make his directorial debut with the realistic, tough-as-nails crime thriller "The Seven-Ups" starring an unwavering Roy Scheider as the leader of a secret squad of the New York police who got their name from the minimum sentence of their targeted gangsters. Things go pear shape when their own is killed in action and the men seek their own justice.

While this urban cop formula might be overworked, it's rather well-done for its type with exciting passages like the scorchingly intense high- speed car chase. It's masterful in its execution and camera positional work. D'Antoni resourcefully keeps a fast pace, where tension is sustained through good writing, elaborate plotting (where it does show its cards early), vivid performances and well-timed thrills and spills with smooth editing. Really it's quite minimal on the action leaning towards the investigative digging, but when it occurs it's explosive and raw. Just the way the 70s loved it. One thing that did catch my attention was Don Ellis' dangerously impulsive music score. Very unhinged, but it did suit the film's dark, relentless tone.

The story is very much character based and the performances are assured across the board. Victor Arnold, Jerry Leon and Ken Kercheval make-up the rest of "The Seven-ups". Tony Lo Bianco magnificently holds up alongside Scheider as his go-to-man for information. Then there's Larry Haines as one the head mobsters. However in the bad guy roles it was Bill Hickman and especially the striking Richard Lynch who stood out. Lynch was terrifically menacing. Also in a minor part is genre actor Joe Spinell.

Compelling, lean and mean 70's cop drama.

I think the filmographic lineage may run like this. Pay attention, please, because I had to look this up. In 1967 Peter Yates, an ex auto racer, directs the English caper movie "Robbery," the most thrilling part of which is a car chase through the streets of London, down alleys where there are crowds of children playing and all that. It's a success.

A year later, Yates directs "Bullet", starring Steve McCool, I mean McQueen, featuring another even more spectacular car chase up and down the San Francisco Hills, with dumbfoundingly authentic engine sounds that seem to include double clutching, full race cams, no mufflers, twelve-cylinder engines under forty-foot hoods, supercharged, superdupercharged, and all five-thousand horsepower running at full tilt. Lots of shots of McQueen's gum-chewing visage scowling with concentration as he tries to bump another car off the highway, though a passenger in the other vehicle totes a shotgun. The chase is staged by Philip D'Antoni. Bill Hopkins drives the criminal vehicle.

A year or two later, sensing a good thing, Bill Friedkin directs "The French Connection," featuring a chase between a commandeered cop car(Gene Hackman) and an elevated train in New York City. Lots of shots of Hackman's cursing face as he wrestles the battered car through the streets. The chase is staged by Philip D'Antoni. Academy Awards follow.

Sensing a good thing, a year or two more brings us "The Seven Ups," featuring a chase between a car driven by Roy Scheider, with lots of shots of Scheider's cursing face as he tries to bump the other car, which is driven by Bill Hopkins, off the road, although the criminal car, to be sure, carries a shotgun-toting passenger. No hills in New York City, just bumps, but they are still sharp enough to elevate the cars a few feet. The pursued car screeches around a corner and dashes down a street on which a dozen children are playing. Shots of the screaming kids as they scatter off the pavement and allows the car to zoom through. But once is not enough. The children immediately run back into the street and must repeat the retreat for the pursuing cop car carrying Scheider.

I once witnessed a pursuit at high speed on the streets of Philadelphia. Both the criminal and the cops drove through the streets at about 25 miles an hour, coming to rolling stops at each Stop sign and red light -- very dull stuff compared to this movie.

Speaking of this movie, it's pretty good. "Robbery" and "Bullet" were cool. Everyone dressed neatly. But the New York movies are filthy. There's garbage all over the place and the subway cars are covered with graffiti. Shoot outs and beat ups take place in vacant lots surrounded by crumbling brick buildings, or in disposal dumps for industrial-sized freezers.

The acting is pretty good too. Roy Scheider seems whippet sleek. The other actors have faces made for the camera, especially Richard Welsh. And the story is engaging, if not entirely unfamiliar. What's best about the film is the way it captures New York City in its almost total indifference to human depravity and nobility. At a funeral, the limo drivers stand around with their collars up, butts hanging out of their mouths, kicking their cold feet together, utterly bored at the ritual goings on. The film wants us to believe that The Seven Ups are an elite group of untouchable cops who stop at nothing to get the job done, and here it's a bit of a sell out. They always seems to be threatening to do something unethical and illegal -- beat hell out of a suspect or physically damage a hospitalized and helpless hood -- but they always manage to avoid doing it. (If they actually did it, their characters would become lifelike and ambiguous and we'd rather have our heroes and villains of a more Biblical nature.) Very enjoyable, even if you've seen it before, and you very well may have in one or another of its previous incarnations.