French Connection 2 [Blu-ray] [1975] [US Import]

It's rare that a sequel completely out-performs its predecessor, but French Connection 2 is as good if not better than the first film. That's partly because the formula of the original French Connection has become tried, tested and trite, so when you watch it now it feels a bit run of the mill.
But the follow up film comes across as completely fresh, a police drama which creates real and involving characters and then places them in appalling jeopardy. Popeye Doyle has been sent to Marseille to pursue the heroin kingpin who eluded him at the end of the first film. His career is on the rocks after killing five men (two of them policemen), and he is considered disposable by his own force -- and a royal pain in the behind by the French police.
Doyle speaks no French so much of the local's dialogue is a mystery to him. These days a film-maker would inevitably give us pages of subtitles but they don't appear in FC2. Instead we start to empathise with Doyle as people rattle off instructions and comments around him. He barely knows what's going on and ends up stalking the evening streets like an escaped wolf in a city. He knows his prey is close but doesn't have a clue how to find him.
There are a couple of shoot out scenes, a marvellous foot chase (Hackman spends most of these films running through streets like a wild dog on the scent), and the requisite 'girls in bikinis' moments, but the high points of the film centre entirely on Hackman's desperate acceptance of his capture, and then his awful recuperation in a French jail cell -- which results in a bond being formed with his French antagonist/colleague.
It's gripping stuff; awesome acting from Hackman. The best scenes show Popeye Doyle, an aggressive and unpleasant NY cop, stripped back to his core and struggling to surface.
The finale of the film is all about his struggle, gasping and alone, pursuing the criminal who nearly destroyed him.
Brilliant cinema.
If you thought the first French Connection was OK, then try this. In many ways FC2 blows the original into the weeds.

Gene Hackman excels in this real life account of the most successful narcotics investigation in the history of U.S law enforcement. The case started when the two New York detectives Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso (played by Gene Hackman and Roy Scnieder)visited a night club on thier way home from work one night.
Whilst they were there they noticed a known Mafiosi spreading around lots of cash, so they decided to follow him after they left the club, little did they know then but they were about to embark on a case that would have international ramifications and end up being a ground breaking case that shook the heroin network in New York.
Hackman won on oscar for his superb pasionate portrayal of the New York Narc Detective, Schnider also helped out with a good supporting role culminating in a fast paced crime thriller that would set the tone for all future action movies.
If Hackman's performance won him an oscar in the first movie, then he should also have had the same accolade for his harrowing performance in part 2, his acting skills were tested to the limit when he had to portray the victim of an insidious kidnaping where he was turned into a heroin addict for him to talk to his subjects and then dumped out on the streets of Marsielle's after he had told them what they wanted to know. However the second part to this story is fictitous but never the less it was an excellent way to end the story, showing the strength of what men can do when they are pushed to the brink, and established by a wonderful cast of characters and brought to reality by the endorsement of Hackmans supberb display in both movies.
A classic that will always be rememberd for just that, and even better on DVD with great special features and a bargain at this price, and an epic 2 films that any collector should not ignore for his collection.

Detective Popeye Doyle (Hackman) is sent to France to resume his chase for the drugs baron Alain Charnier (Rey)

The sequel to the Oscar winning smash brings back the electric Hackman as Popeye as he continues his search for Fernando Rey's criminal in another highly charged crime drama that is brimming with sizzling drama and passion that arguably betters the original in more ways than one.

What made the first film special for me was the climax. It was sharp, raised questions and was so abrupt you couldn't believe it on first viewing. Hearing of the sequel I watched with some scepticism given that this picked up right where it left off. Admittedly this turned out to be much slicker and tenser than its predecessor and a heavy gamble that paid off.

Like the first the scene setting and initial first stage is quite slow and so getting into this film straight away is like trying to fit a boat through your front door, it just does not have the room and force to generate the gob smacking feeling of say Pulp Fiction.

Nevertheless the film moves at a swift pace and when the excellent Hackman enters France does the film pick up and gives an ideology of how rivalry between countries spills from professional to personal vendettas. The first instalment of the two focused around Doyle fighting America's own system as he seeks to bring Charnier to justice through his own impulses. Here we see Doyle's impulses get the better of him again but now the ramifications are steeper and more consequential as he battles the French system where everything is more tidy, secretive and admittedly professional, systems which go against Doyle's actions.

Like the French Connection this follow up has a collection of heavy talking sequences where the pros and cons are weighed up to solve the problems and with the usage of different departments, undercover agents and trackers the film establishes its use of the entire French force.

Given the chase sequence in the first film was marvellously executed it was going to take something unbelievable to even match that momentous sequence. French Connection II has encoded a big under water gun fight, a sharp bullet of a climax and one remarkably exhausting drama from Popeye.

As with the first this is all about the illegal inclusion of drugs in society and when Popeye is kidnapped he is forced heroin and there is one particular scene you will never forget as he screams and shouts at his colleagues on his attempted recovery. A truly shocking moment that shows the actor in high standard and may just have the viewer in tears.

This is sharper more fluent and expressive story that like the first comes to a lovably dramatic finale.

8.5/10