In 1971, William Friedkin made The French Connection, a savage thriller that delivered an unapologetically squalid look at New York police work courtesy of heavy handed narcotics detective Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle. Less a good cop than an obsessed thug with a badge, we kept up with him step for step as he intimidated, brutalised and shot his way toward trying to catch his prey – charming drug Kingpin Alain Charnier. But after a desperate quest that saw him terrorise the citizens of New York with impromptu car chases and shooting fleeing suspects in the back, Friedkin’s movie ended on an abrupt note as our lead character was left impotently searching after his quarry managed to slink away after a massive and bloody police raid.
While a measured gutshot from a notoriously daring director made to shake audiences out of their preconceived notions of how these movies usually end, it didn’t stop French Connection II from surfacing four years later to overturn that shocking ending. But with Friedkin and co-star Roy Scheider nowhere to be seen and a location change that sees Popeye become a fish out of water, can a potentially unnecessary sequel earn its existence when compared to one of the greatest cops and robbers flicks ever made?
Four years after “Popeye” Doyle managed to mistakenly shoot a fellow police officer and let Charnier slip through his fingers, we find the abrasive cop arriving in Marseille after being sent by his department to France in order to trake his nemesis down. He’s assigned to English speaking Inspector Henri Barthélémy, who quickly discovers that the foul-mouthed, impatient American is going to be something of a nightmare to control. However hamstrung by a language barrier that prevents his usual intimidation tactics and laws that prohibit foreign police officers to carry firearms, it’s a little confusing why either country would think Popeye being in France would do anybody any good.
Barthélémy’s fears are further realised when the hotheaded Popeye blows a police raid which causes the death of an undercover operative, but as the extreme culture shock renders the volatile officer almost useless, his true value comes to the fore when, on one of his pointless excursions, Popeye is spotted by Charnier. It seems that the whole reason Doyle was allowed to set foot on French soil in the first was to use his ass as bait and after he’s spotted, Charnier takes no chances when it comes to covering himself.
Blowing through the men assigned to keep an eye on Popeye as if they werent even there, Charnier’s goons spirit Doyle back to a secluded hotel where an appropriately seedy fate awaits him. Knowing full well that Doyle won’t break under a conventional beating, he’s instead subjected to an extended regime of heroin to sap his will and break his spirit. Can someone even as pig-headed as Popeye Doyle manage to withstand such an onslaught, and even if he can, what state will he be in if he manages to crawl out of that sordid drug hole alive?
French Connection II seems to be one of those sequels that obtained something of a bad rap for no other reason than it’s very existence kind of undoes the whole point of the original film. Friedkin’s down and dirty epic dragged us through the slime and the cold and placed us in a world where even our heroes are callous pieces of shit, only to audaciously end the film on a draw as the obsessive Popeye ultimately failed to pin down his elusive target. It was a dark and unsettling ending to a dark and unsettling movie, but some purists may understandably grumble that our abrasive anti-hero gets a very unrealistic second chance by virtue of the fact that Hollywood’s never been overly fond of messy endings.
While Friedkin has jumped ship, thankfully John Frankenheimer is on board to try and ensure that the grit, filth and general downbeat vibe of this world remains defiantly intact. For a start, the director does a cracking job of showing that the Marseille of 1975 is every bit the unrelenting cesspool that New York was in 1971 and we get taken on a sight-seeing tour of scuzzy drug-hostels, dingy alleyways and decrepit police stations that fit the original’s aesthetic wonderfully. It also helps that we’re seeing it through the belligerent, openly racist eyes of Gene Hackman’s Popeye Doyle who, if anything, proves to be an even bigger, more entitled, piece of merde this time around. Out of his element and certainly feeling it, Hackman relishes taking his bad-tempered, misanthrope utterly out of his comfort zone by stripping away his ability to even communicate on a basic level (of course the asshole hasn’t bothered to learn a word of French in preparation). Not only does his famous “ploughing feet in Poughkeepsie” jibes fall on uncomprehending ears, but the man can’t even buy a drink or score a cheap date as he’s rendered almost powerless by both the language barrier and the fact he’s a huge prick.
However, while it’s a fascinating way to flip the script, there’s a bone of contention about the fact that a sizable chunk of the running time is devoted to simply spending time with Doyle after he’s kidnapped and repeatedly pumped full of Gallic smack over a period of three whole weeks.
It certainly feels like three weeks too, as the film’s momentum crashes by design and we get to watch Hackman slur and mumble aimlessly about Mickey Mantel and baseball, and we also spend an inordinate amount of time with him as his French partner locks him in a police cell and let’s him go cold turkey. It’s an interesting way to give such a character something of a twisted redemption arc and while it’s up for debate whether or not Popeye even deserves it, it certainly prevents the sequel being a predictable retread and dutifully ensures that the usettling levels of grit are maintained.
Yes, French Connection II is noticely inferior to its predecessor, but that’s only really because The French Connection is one of the best cop films ever made. Conversely while there’s nothing here to match that stunning, infamously dangerous car chase – which is ironic considering that Frankenheimer wasn’t exactly a pushover when it cames to flinging vehicles about himself – the film manages to stay in the game with a few, highly energetic gun-based setpieces. But while one sees Doyle spectacularly burning down the flop house that turned him into a drooling junkie and another has us witness a blazing gunfight within a rapidly flooding drydock, it’s the final foot chase that really sticks with you. As a wheezing and sweating Doyle races to head of Charnier’s fleeing yacht through disinterested French crowds, you find yourself rooting for this callous nut job as it seems like he actually might lose his prey once again. But thanks to an ending every bit as jarring and abrupt as the original, we ensure that at least one of them won’t be ploughing their feet in Poughkeepsie ever again in a fashion that’s both incredibly satisfying and uncomfortably brutal.
Proving that even “happy” endings in the French Connection aren’t even that happy, French Connection II manages to keep the basic message intact despite the fact that the film’s very existence puts it in jeopardy. Yes, it’s not as good as the original, but guess what – neither are 98% of all other crime flicks either, and that doesn’t seem to stop them, so let’s give this wonderfully unpleasant sequel the shot in the arm it so nastily deserves.
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