In today’s film industry, there is a vast difference between the films that tend to find themselves in award-season conversations, and those that dominate the box office. While occasionally an event like the release ofBarbieandOppenheimerwill occur, there’s generally a fairly distinct difference between the audience for award-season fare likeNomadlandandParasite, and the broad appeal of blockbusters likeSpider-Man: No Way HomeandJurassic World Dominion.This simply wasn’t the case in the 1970s,the era dubbed “New Hollywood.”Many Best Picture winners, includingThe French Connection, were surprising box office hits that generated enough interest to inspire a sequel.
The discrepancy in quality whenit came to these award-season contenderswas rather drastic.The Godfatherearned a sequel that also took home the Best Picture prize,Rockyturned into a far more commercial sports franchise, andThe Stingreceived a disastrous follow-up that is ranked among the worst continuations in franchise history. Oddly,The French Connectionseemed the most inherently set up to produce a sequel, as the first film left it open to whatGene Hackman’s Popeye Doyle would do next in his search for the elusive drug dealer Alain Charnier (Fernando Ray). Living up to the legacy ofWilliam Friedkin’s defining masterpiece was no easy task, butFrench Connection IIis a completely worthwhile sequel that took the series in a much darker direction.
French Connection II
“Popeye” Doyle travels to Marseille to find Alain Charnier, the drug smuggler who eluded him in New York.
What Is ‘The French Connection II’ About?
An issue that many sequels face in their inception phase is finding a justifiable reason to extend the story.The French Connectiondidn’t necessarily wrap things up neatly, but it did imply that Popeye had succeeded inpreventing New York City from stepping into a deeper stage of the drug war. However,French Connection IImoved the setting from the United States to Marseille, France,where Doyle is forced to team up with the local law enforcement officers in an attempt to track down Charnier, who goes by the nickname “Frog One.” Although Doyle has some notoriety as being the cop that busted Charnier’s drug ring in the first place, he’s also an American whose ignorance of European customs makes him an outsider once more. Inspector Henri Barthélémy (Bernard Fresson), the English-speaking member of the local cops, does not have the same appreciative qualities that had made Cloudy Russo (Roy Scheider) such an effective ally in the first film.
The change in creative direction ended up helping ensure thatFrench Connection IIdidn’t just feel like a “greatest hits” version of its predecessor.Friedkin’s film was influential because he brought a quasi-documentarian style to the action scenes, creating moments of mayhem that were almost eerily close to reality. This was a skill he would subsequently use to great effect in his later masterpieces, likeThe ExorcistandSorcerer. However,French Connection II’s directorJohn Frankenheimerwas no slouch, having directed classic action films likeThe Manchurian CandidateandSeconds.French Connection IIisa more straightforward action filmthat meets Popeye with consistent danger, rather than relying purely on a few major car chases.
‘The French Connection II’ Showed a Different Side of Popeye
Popeye is a far more vulnerable character inFrench Connection II, as his goals for tracking down Charnier are completely different. In the first film, Popeye was simply doing his job to the best of his abilities, as he intended to stop the spread of drugs within New York’s criminal underworld. However, there’san element of a revenge thrillerthat makesFrench Connection IImore compelling. Popeye has spent four years in the shadow of the case, and knows that Charnier is “the one that got away.” Even if professionally he was rewarded for avoiding a potentially disastrous situation, he knows that he will not sleep easily until Charnier is personally held accountable and brought to justice. Ray and Hackman have a terrific interaction through their mental mind games, even though they only rarely share any screen time together.
French Connection IIgets quite dark when it dealswith its addiction storyline, a harrowing plot development that forces Hackman to show a different side of Popeye. After Charnier’s men kidnap Popeye, they regularly inject him with heroin before releasing him, ensuring that he will have a constant craving for the drug. Considering that Popeye is a character known for his ability to keep his inhibitions in check, disrupting his mind in such a cruel way is among the grimmest fates that he could have been met with. There’s also a cruel irony in exposing him to drugs, considering Popeye’s conservative stance on their usage has been one of his most defining characteristics. The sequences of his relapse and recovery are certainly harrowing, but Hackman emerges with a more seasoned, determined, and compassionate version of one of action cinema’s greatest heroes.
‘The French Connection II’ Marked a Change of Pace for Gene Hackman
In the subsequent years, he appeared in several other crime classics, including the neo-noir detective storyNight Movesand the spy filmThe Domino Principle. Neither film was met with the same level of acclaim that either installment inThe French Connectionseries did, but they were both modest hits that remain popular cult classics to this day.Hackman also proved he was capable of bringing depth to a character in a recurring franchise.After appearing in a brief role as Lex Luthor in the 1978 blockbusterSuperman: The Movie, Hackman was able to give a more menacing portrayal of the Man of Steel’s greatest menacein the excellent follow-upSuperman II.
French Connection IIwas a film that had no right to be as good as it was.While Hackman’s role in the first film had won him his first Academy Award for Best Actor, his work in the sequel indicated that he was a great “genre” movie star capable of handlingthese types of prestigious crime thrillers, but his performance in this sequel certainly deserved more attention than it received.
