This certainly must be the strangest of all sequels in motion picture history. The two main characters of French Connection I are still there, played by the same actors, Don Ellis composed another compelling musical score but everything else has changed. The script is by someone else, the director is not a young experimentalist but an experienced and highly respected professional, the location is not New York but Marseilles, France for the whole duration of the movie. If you like FC I it is not at all certain you will like FC II, they did not use the same recipe (and I thought that's all the sequel business is about!). I, for my part, think this unusual kind of dealing with a sequel is fascinating. I like both FC I and FC II, but for entirely different reasons.
FC I is, as I see it, a situation. The actors, the events and their surroundings constitute a whole. Everything fits, that makes FC I a great movie. In FC II we meet Popeye Doyle in Marseilles. And from the first moment it becomes very clear: Popeye does NOT fit - and this is basically the story of FC II. A man finds himself on foreign ground, where all is incomprehensible, where every step is dangerous. Popeye is a fish out of the water, he nervously gasps for oxygen. All his contacts are French and Popeye can't figure them out, be they policemen or criminals or just common individuals.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD
So FC II focuses on the person of Popeye Doyle (all alone, without his buddy "Cloudy"). At first sight one might think, knowing the story of FC I, that Doyle is on a personal vendetta. But no, he is in France on official business! His commission is to assist the French police in the capturing of drug kingpin Charnier as he is the only one able to identify him. Being under the command of some frog he can hardly understand, that's not to Popeyes taste. Soon he strikes out on his own. Charnier's men capture him, hold him in a dingy room somewhere in the old town for weeks and make him a heroin addict. He then is deposited at the stairs of the police commandature.
The French police take Popeye in, lock him in an underground cell and force him to go cold turkey. His contact in the French police monitors Popeye and stays close to him during that time, without really becoming his friend. The harrowing scenes during the "rehabilitation process" are probably Gene Hackman's best on screen performance (apparently much of it was improvised). The movie resembles here a stage play and is far from mainstream moviemaking.
The "rehabilitation" is a success, but Popeye is not the person he was before. Somehow the viewer gets the impression that he is a broken man (or maybe he has just become more mature?). The French police officer confirms Doyle's suspicion that his superiors in New York did not send him over to act but had an agreement with the French police to use him as a bait for Charnier a mere puppet. So it becomes clear more so than in FC I that Popeye Doyle is nothing but a small cog in the big, incomprehensible system.
FC I is, as I see it, a situation. The actors, the events and their surroundings constitute a whole. Everything fits, that makes FC I a great movie. In FC II we meet Popeye Doyle in Marseilles. And from the first moment it becomes very clear: Popeye does NOT fit - and this is basically the story of FC II. A man finds himself on foreign ground, where all is incomprehensible, where every step is dangerous. Popeye is a fish out of the water, he nervously gasps for oxygen. All his contacts are French and Popeye can't figure them out, be they policemen or criminals or just common individuals.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD
So FC II focuses on the person of Popeye Doyle (all alone, without his buddy "Cloudy"). At first sight one might think, knowing the story of FC I, that Doyle is on a personal vendetta. But no, he is in France on official business! His commission is to assist the French police in the capturing of drug kingpin Charnier as he is the only one able to identify him. Being under the command of some frog he can hardly understand, that's not to Popeyes taste. Soon he strikes out on his own. Charnier's men capture him, hold him in a dingy room somewhere in the old town for weeks and make him a heroin addict. He then is deposited at the stairs of the police commandature.
The French police take Popeye in, lock him in an underground cell and force him to go cold turkey. His contact in the French police monitors Popeye and stays close to him during that time, without really becoming his friend. The harrowing scenes during the "rehabilitation process" are probably Gene Hackman's best on screen performance (apparently much of it was improvised). The movie resembles here a stage play and is far from mainstream moviemaking.
The "rehabilitation" is a success, but Popeye is not the person he was before. Somehow the viewer gets the impression that he is a broken man (or maybe he has just become more mature?). The French police officer confirms Doyle's suspicion that his superiors in New York did not send him over to act but had an agreement with the French police to use him as a bait for Charnier a mere puppet. So it becomes clear more so than in FC I that Popeye Doyle is nothing but a small cog in the big, incomprehensible system.