The French Connection Two

With the success of the 1971 Oscar best picture it was inevitable that a return to the story would take place. Unfortunately the first movie had been based on true events where the villain Charnier escaped. With profits beckoning however the producers of this movie took the original character and created a fictionalized account of Popeye Doyle's New York Police Detective continued chase of Charnair on the drug dealers home turf of Marseilles.

I gave the first movie a good rating, the elevated train chase scene is one of the best pursuit scenes you will ever see but the movie had flaws. This second movie also is good but it is not great.

Doyle, played again by Hackman, struggles with the language and it is clear that he is not welcomed by the French police. Perhaps it is to make an illustration of how isolated Popeye is but with most of the characters speaking in untranslated French one as a viewer can find that frustrating. Still the meaning is clear, the French detective Henri,played in an understated, rumpled way by Bernard Fresson, has read Doyle's file and finds his Wild West approach to police work unappealing.

Eventually Popeye finds his way to the beach and unbeknownst to him he is noticed by Charnier himself as he is having dinner in a restaurant adjacent to the beach. Popeye being trailed, by two French detectives to as much keep and eye on him as keep him safe, ditches his shadows at, what becomes a very poor time, as soon he is grabbed off the street by Charnier's man. Taken to a hotel he meets face to face with the Frenchman who wants to know what he knows about his operation. When Doyle refuses to cooperate he is injected with heroin which becomes his lifeline the next three weeks. As the police saturate the city however looks for Doyle, the Frenchman is feeling pinched in his activities. After a final interrogation of Doyle which merits nothing new in the way of information they give him one last injection of heroin and dump in a street.

Knowing that he will never be trusted as a policeman before if known as an ex junkie Herni puts him in isolation in one of the cells and we are witness to the cold turkey approach of getting off heroin. It is not pretty and Doyle suffers greatly, begging for a fix.

Eventually after a harrowing experience Doyle is off the junk and back on the job. He and Henri' have made an uneasy peace and from this point on work together to try to find the French drug lord.

An interesting correlation in the movie was that while the first movie had a high speed chase scene that is revered the second movie as it nears its conclusion has a low speed chase scene which if anything is more suspenseful that the first movie.

John Frankenheimer did a fine job with a movie that was going to be held up to a nearly impossible standard, writing a fictional end to a true story was always going to have its share of critics. The movie is strong and the scenes of drug withdrawal in a sympathetic character were very strong.

Worthy of the original. Hackman as always is wonderful.