French Connection II

John Frankenheimer may be the best Director that modern Movie Lovers have never heard of. He was always ahead of His time and never compromising. This Movie is surely uncompromising. It took a well known Best Actor Performance from a Best Picture Winner and the Character, Popeye Doyle, and stripped Him of the already barely likable persona of a tough, one dimensional Cop and laid Him open for all to see. It was not a pretty picture.

Neither is French Connection II. It will have you squirming and the Second Act detox is not for anyone with expectation of a slick Action Movie. This is a gritty, dirty, unpleasant Character Study that is compelling Cinema, but not Viewer Friendly. It was taking that Seventies realism just one step further.

It has enough Action and energy to make it as a Thriller but it never lets you forget the painful pursuit of Doyle's obsession with removing H from the Street and the even deeper pain of removing it from your body. This makes this compelling and completely coarse Cinema that makes you pay the price for your Entertainment. Not the best Box-Office formula but it is the stuff of Artistic Angst.

The movie concerns on Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman), an unorthodox New York narcotics cop investigating the flow of drug that follows the trail of the French connection . He travels to Marsaille following the foreign connection and tries to track down the eluded evil Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey) , the smuggling ring chief , who escaped from N.Y.C. There , he joins forces to the French gendarmes (Bernard Fresson and Jean Pierre Castaldi , among others) to hunt down the ringleader . Then , Popeye getaways his French escorts and goes himself into action .

The picture is the follow-up to ¨French Connection¨(by William Friedkin) but didn't achieved the same success and was a flop at box office . However , being , nowadays , considered a very good film and highly rated . In the movie there is action , suspense , violence , intrigue and a little bit of humor in charge of Popeye Doyle , as he begins to find himself as a fish out of water in France and particularly on his relationships with the French people . The film develops a certain social critical to the French habits and there's specially a banter to the Police called Gendarmerie . The motion picture has action-packed but in the intervening period when the starring ends up being abducted by Alain Charnier's henchmen , it results to be a little bit boring , with overlong scenes ; besides , quite disagreeable as Popeye is injected heroin . Gene Hackman's interpretation as the rebel and nonconformist Popeye Doyle is top-notch as well as the previous film that's why he gained deservedly an Academy Award . Fernando Rey repeats perfectly his role as the elegant and cunning nasty and the secondary casting formed by French actors are very fine . The picture was stunningly directed by John Frankenheimer. Rating : Very good and well worth watching.

Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle (Gene Hackman) travels to Marseilles to find Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey), the drug smuggler who eluded him in New York.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two and a half out of four stars and said that "if Frankenheimer and his screenplay don't do justice to the character (of Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle), they at least do justice to the genre, and this is better than most of the many cop movies that followed." Is this the classic the original was? Of course not. But you have to give them credit for trying, and not just passing it off as a weak sequel. They kept Hackman, they brought in a big director like Frankenheimer. This was not something just to make a few bucks. And while it may not be the same level of "classic", it still has what most viewers want: some action, some chase scenes... and a devious subplot of a drug cop getting hooked on heroin!

It's not very often that a sequel snags a filmmaker even more accomplished than the original director, but John Frankenheimer's gritty touch was just what 'French Connection II (1975)' needed. William Friedkin's 'The French Connection (1971)' was itself gritty, tense and exciting, spinning a true-life police procedural into a harrowing exploration of obsession and corruption. Frankenheimer, in the same vein as 'The Manchurian Candidate (1962),' occasionally infuses his film's stark realism with surreal, hallucinatory elements, perfect for depicting the heroin-fuelled stupor that "Popeye" Doyle (Gene Hackman) is ruthlessly forced to endure. The sequel offers a fictional extension of the original film's true events, and sees Detective Doyle following the trail of drug-lord Charnier (Fernando Rey) onto the unfamiliar and unsympathetic streets of Marseilles, France. With the reluctant assistance of local cop Barthélémy (Bernard Fresson), Doyle uncertainly strolls the dirty streets, out of his element in this foreign metropolis, and perpetually hampered by cultural and language differences.

Gene Hackman won an Oscar for his first turn as "Popeye" Doyle, and here he probably deserved another one. His efforts continually frustrated by international bureaucracy and local hostility, Detective Doyle broils with aggression and resentment, a distinctly unlikable but engrossing personality. In one particularly excruciating sequence, as Doyle attempts to kick a heroin addiction cold-turkey, Hackman's performance is a masterclass – pitiful, riveting and painful. 'French Connection II' concludes with an exciting police raid and foot-chase, shot in a realistic style that no doubt influenced successors like Ridley Scott. Doyle's final pursuit of Charnier across the busy streets of Marseilles is enthralling, not least because Hackman himself appears to give it his all, having reportedly neglected to alert Frankenheimer of a chronic knee ailment. In a medium where heroes apparently possess boundless energy, I can't recall a more exhausted and beaten-looking chase participant since Kurosawa's 'Stray Dog (1949).'

Review: French Connection II

If ever there was a character who embodied the mantra of "too much is never enough," it's Gene Hackman's Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in French Connection II. Hackman reprises his role with an intensity that could best be described as equal parts compelling and concerning. His relentless, almost cartoonishly excessive approach to policing makes Dirty Harry look like a yoga instructor. Popeye's antics aren't just rough-and-tumble - they're bulldozer-in-a-china-shop rough. And while this gung-ho style may have paved the way for generations of gritty cop characters, it's hard not to think that Popeye could benefit from either a few anger management sessions or a permanent holiday in a padded cell. His methods make policing in a banana republic look measured by comparison.

The film itself is a curious beast. Unlike the taut, Oscar-winning original, the sequel takes a fragmented approach, peppering the narrative with moments that feel as disconnected as Doyle himself after a few too many drinks. The cold turkey subplot, while ambitious, overstays its welcome - much like a guest who insists on recounting their detox journey in excruciating detail. Yes, it's gripping at times, but also drawn out to the point of exhaustion.

Yet, despite its flaws, there's a certain charm to French Connection II. It reflects the 1970s in all its unfiltered glory: raw, experimental, and unafraid to show its dark underbelly. And let's not forget, this was a sequel - a concept still relatively novel at the time. Its boldness deserves applause, even if its execution occasionally falters.

Ultimately, French Connection II is a reflective, uneven ride through the mind of a cop who might just be too unhinged for his own good. Entertaining? Absolutely. Timeless? Not quite. But it's an enjoyable throwback to a time when sequels were rare, and heroes like Doyle were as flawed as the stories they inhabited.