French Connection 2
The very tricky business of sequels is one that at times can make or break the most beloved franchises within the film industry. Sometimes a sequel can be SO bad that it can literally ruin the genre from whence the original film came (like with Smokey And The Bandit 2 and the good ol boy redneck chase comedy) or they could possibly enhance their originals or even better them (Star Wars, Lord Of The Rings franchises come to mind). But whatâs even rarer is the example of a sequel (to an Oscar winning hit film for Best Picture and Best Actor no less) that does well at the box office for its time and is roundly praised by most critics, but as the years and even decades go on, that sequel routinely becomes rarely talked about or even forgotten entirely as far as having so much as even existed for no known discernible reason whatsoever while the classic original remains highly regarded to this day. A textbook example of this is the 1975 followup to William Friedkinâs The French Connection, an outing that saw Friedkin take the Best Director Oscar along with the aforementioned Best Picture win and Gene Hackman picking up Best Actor. The film had ended with the busting of a major heroin shipment and all the major American players captured, but a craw was still stuck in the side of Hackmanâs Popeye Doyle over the escape of the French drug kingpin himself, Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey) otherwise known as Frog One. An interesting development between the films had seen the real life Frog One from the actual case (still at large when the original was released) actually get captured in France to a little bit of fanfare due to the popularity of the first film, leading to the conception of this sequel involving Hackman traveling to France to finish what he had started even though the real life cop that Doyle was based on (Eddie Egan) had nothing to do with the actual collar itself. Not long after arriving in the French city of Marseille, Hackman is given some bad news in finding out that nearly all of the heroin that had been confiscated in the original bust had mysteriously âdisappearedâ from police headquarters and had no doubt still netted someone a profit. Itâs interesting how most of the characters speak French at various times and yet no subtitles are employed, probably because Hackmanâs character doesnât speak any and thus we remain just as disoriented as he is. A fish out of water Ugly American who doesnât care for the French thankfully means that the character has not been watered down in any way from the nasty yet determined bastard whom we had first met in the original, being given a desk to work from next to the bathroom and being told that he is merely there as an âobserverâ in order to help them catch Frog One (they even forbid him from carrying a gun although he had sneaked one over in his luggage). The truth of the matter though is a little more shocking, as even though Hackman had been told that he was sent over there in order to assist with the investigation, The French Police had actually intended to use Hackman as a form of BAIT whenever Frog One (who had remembered him well from the first movie) had seen Hackman walking the streets looking for clues on how to find him as they were hoping that it would somehow draw him out (or at least his assassins) and help with their own apprehension even as Hackman himself is considered to be more or less expendable. As Hackman shakes loose of his assigned desk at the station and moves about the city, it isnât long before Fernando Reyâs Frog One (Alain Charnier) spots him and sets his goons into action. It couldnât have come at a worst time, as he was just setting up a deal with a new American partner (Ed Lauter) who is a military general no less(!) with all the necessary implications of a growing worldwide conspiracy amongst the most powerful of this world to continue the heroin flow in order to keep down the masses. It isnât long before Hackman is grabbed by his goons to be interrogated directly, but Frog One isnât really into torture it turns out. Instead, he has Hackman tied down and injected with a steady stream of his finest heroin, reducing the ferocious Doyle to an almost docile state and transforming him into what he despises the most: a junkie. After realizing that he knows next to nothing, Frog One orders him to be ODed and dumped off at the police station, where the police doctors save his life but must then detox him of the horrific addiction and dope sickness withdrawal symptoms that still remain. It is here that special mention must be made that for anyone who enjoyed Hackmanâs Oscar winning performance in the original or just think of him as being a great actor in general, these scenes in particular might represent the most powerful acting of his career ever, as Doyle is kept in a cell and goes cold turkey, babbling out whatever lies and excuses he can in order to get out and becoming aggressive if need be, finally ending in a long yet amazing dialogue scene with his French partner (Bernard Fresson, who does a good job here) where the Doyle character literally bares his soul, breaking down as he realizes what his worst enemy has successfully turned him into. Letâs just say that when Doyle gets back up to full strength and is fully pissed off (perhaps moreso than ever before) that itâs amazing that Frog One lasts as long as he does. Unfortunately, all that Hackman could muster in the various Awards races was a Golden Globe nom for Best Lead Actor In A Drama, but even that alone was a true testament to the raw, emotional acting job that he puts on here. As for the film itself, it must be realized that being a sequel that changes its primary location entirely and given the nature of the actual material, this falls squarely into being within the genre of the very popular European police dramas of the 1970s (most of which were actually set in Italy) where the cream of the crop among European actors were always starring in these procedurals involving criminals, illegal narcotics, and any and all forms of organized crime, although this one does have the obvious distinction of featuring a top name American actor reprising his popular role of a hard edged New York City cop whoâs still on the hunt as director John Frankenheimer uses new techniques including a POV shot of Doyle as heâs giving chase and a number of other methods that are meant to disorient the viewer much as Doyle remains disoriented especially in the second half of the film. Itâs also commendable that after a LOT of negative interplay between Doyle and his French counterparts, they still ultimately back him up even when the French government orders him onto a plane and back to America, calmly closing their own eyes to him disregarding those particular orders and allowing him to get back into the hunt. And it is that hunt (and the last twenty minutes) where even though things might get slow at times that the viewer might actually start to recall the final minutes of the original French Connection, where Doyle was mere footsteps away from successfully capturing a man whom he considered to be the lowest form of life on this planet but whom also happened to be extremely wealthy and proficient in what he did for a living and we might also remember just how that rich scumbag actually managed to elude and outsmart our hero in the end. Which again brings us to that last 20 minutes here as the massive final chase begins and we still remember that in the end this is all still about our two returning main actors in Gene Hackman and Fernando Rey, our two main characters in Popeye Doyle and Frog One, and once again the fact that our returning hero has been given a second chance (after suffering through a hell of a LOT of shit) to redeem himself after the closing events of the original Oscar winning film, only this time on the villainâs home turf. And it is that feeling of closure after yet another epic chase, actually done with quite a bit of suspense and panache by Frankenheimer, that seals this film as possibly the most underrated sequel in all of cinema history, not just recommended but REQUIRED viewing for all fans of the original, a companion piece where the one moment that weâve patiently waited to see for nearly two whole films finally comes to pass in the final ten secondsâŚ
8/10