French Connection II is an odd beast; an animal that starts off as one thing, becomes something else and then ends in exactly the sort of manner you'd expect it to, only not as epic. There are times in French Connection II, the sequel to 1971's Best Picture Winner, that will have you groaning in disbelief; others will have you looking away from the screen, especially if you're not a big fan of needles and syringes.
I suppose comparisons will be made with the general consensus tilting in the favour of the first one but, remarkably, I'm going to have to disagree. It seems whenever you hear of the first film, the first thing you get people talking about is the car chase you ask them what else they like about the film and they tell you Gene Hackman and Scheider are pretty damn good; OK, anything else? No? Right. Fact of the matter is, The French Connection is a film that is the victim of its own success and a film that, bar the famous chase sequence, I cannot recall all that well something about a policeman who gets black people up against a wall? Something about a smuggling operation? A European bad-guy dealing in drugs? (Could've been worse, could've been South American). Not sure, the memories are hazy. But in French Connection II, if you remember for one thing, it's not a chase scene, its an entire segment revolving around Popeye (Hackman, again) recovering from his heroin addiction that became forced upon him by heroin dealer himself Alain Charnier (Rey).
I said the film was a three in one deal; that much is technically true. The first may be by the book but it's impressive enough; the second is the harrowing drug addiction sequence and the third is a by the book finale that is as formulaic as a black guy dying first in a Hollywood blockbuster or as an example of Mulvey's gaze theory in a 1940s Hollywood film it deserves better. But for its innings, French Connection II plays some textbook shots, some loose swings and some by the numbers forward defences on each occasion, it gets away with it enough to remain engaging.
The film tells the tale of 'Popeye' Doyle, the ultimate fish out of water if ever there was one: an American in France or perhaps more simply put; an American in Europe. I mentioned it was by the book but that it wasn't a bad thing; we have several scenes devoted to Doyle's inability to deal with his new surroundings, you can take the hard boiled cop out of the U.S. of A. but you cannot take the U.S. of A. out of the hard boiled cop. Seemingly pointless scenes that revolve around Doyle's failure to order even the most basic of requirements at a French café, be it food or drink as well as little shots of him in his hotel room; sitting there bemused and confused, the television on and producing incomprehensible French programming but it all serves a point, it can also be impressive; this is Doyle and the film showing Doyle as a lost soul, wondering and lonely. My favourite examples of this little segment are the long, exterior shots of Marseilles as Doyle walks along streets and roads; this not only gives him the above attributes of the 'loner' but makes excellent use of the setting with impressive cinematography.
Along with this, the film relies on the old fail safe of a buddy relationship between Doyle and the French detective accomplice; a sort of best friend/worst enemy relationship that is pushed and then tested before coming to a satisfactory agreement when Barthélémy (Fresson) helps him through his recovery process; the most touching of scenes is when he listens to Doyle's slurred comments about a baseball game. I could go into egos and superegos that irrupt between the two but that is elementary for the genre, I suppose. So with the establishment of the film and the character complete with some hard boiled and entertaining scenes in which an inside man gets severely messed up; Doyle deals with two tails and also extensively bemoans his office locale, French Connection II is impressive. But then it becomes another animal, ruthlessly plunging us into a world of not only vacant storytelling (albeit for the good/effective) and pure disturbance. Maybe it's the dislike of needles, maybe not but it's the sort of jolt you get when watching torture porn; it goes from standard film with this and that to disturbing series of scenes involving human misery of some sort, much like a recent torture porn film.
I'd say the second segment of French Connection II is amongst the most unwatchable in any film, especially with content like the old lady complete with infection, making a little needless but jolting reminder what will happen if Doyle does not control his itching urge. If anything, French Connection II becomes TOO hard boiled and all of a sudden; you are longing for formula, you are longing for absolutely anything else bar what you're seeing. Much like the torture porn effect; having a character have sex and get high for an hour before sawing his head off is one thing but having someone smart, hard and upstanding like Doyle seem alienated and lost for forty minutes before having him tied to a bed and heroin injected into him is another thing: John Frankenheimer pulls off what people like Eli Roth cannot, and it was thirty years ago. And so, toward the end when the weak plot points involving the 'set up' and the 'finding of the location' through whatever means needed occur, you don't mind because you are out of the hell Doyle is put through. French Connection II is fun, entertaining and very unnerving when it takes its dive. Not one for the squeamish, unbelievably, but an impressive gritty crime film that delivers on certain levels.
I suppose comparisons will be made with the general consensus tilting in the favour of the first one but, remarkably, I'm going to have to disagree. It seems whenever you hear of the first film, the first thing you get people talking about is the car chase you ask them what else they like about the film and they tell you Gene Hackman and Scheider are pretty damn good; OK, anything else? No? Right. Fact of the matter is, The French Connection is a film that is the victim of its own success and a film that, bar the famous chase sequence, I cannot recall all that well something about a policeman who gets black people up against a wall? Something about a smuggling operation? A European bad-guy dealing in drugs? (Could've been worse, could've been South American). Not sure, the memories are hazy. But in French Connection II, if you remember for one thing, it's not a chase scene, its an entire segment revolving around Popeye (Hackman, again) recovering from his heroin addiction that became forced upon him by heroin dealer himself Alain Charnier (Rey).
I said the film was a three in one deal; that much is technically true. The first may be by the book but it's impressive enough; the second is the harrowing drug addiction sequence and the third is a by the book finale that is as formulaic as a black guy dying first in a Hollywood blockbuster or as an example of Mulvey's gaze theory in a 1940s Hollywood film it deserves better. But for its innings, French Connection II plays some textbook shots, some loose swings and some by the numbers forward defences on each occasion, it gets away with it enough to remain engaging.
The film tells the tale of 'Popeye' Doyle, the ultimate fish out of water if ever there was one: an American in France or perhaps more simply put; an American in Europe. I mentioned it was by the book but that it wasn't a bad thing; we have several scenes devoted to Doyle's inability to deal with his new surroundings, you can take the hard boiled cop out of the U.S. of A. but you cannot take the U.S. of A. out of the hard boiled cop. Seemingly pointless scenes that revolve around Doyle's failure to order even the most basic of requirements at a French café, be it food or drink as well as little shots of him in his hotel room; sitting there bemused and confused, the television on and producing incomprehensible French programming but it all serves a point, it can also be impressive; this is Doyle and the film showing Doyle as a lost soul, wondering and lonely. My favourite examples of this little segment are the long, exterior shots of Marseilles as Doyle walks along streets and roads; this not only gives him the above attributes of the 'loner' but makes excellent use of the setting with impressive cinematography.
Along with this, the film relies on the old fail safe of a buddy relationship between Doyle and the French detective accomplice; a sort of best friend/worst enemy relationship that is pushed and then tested before coming to a satisfactory agreement when Barthélémy (Fresson) helps him through his recovery process; the most touching of scenes is when he listens to Doyle's slurred comments about a baseball game. I could go into egos and superegos that irrupt between the two but that is elementary for the genre, I suppose. So with the establishment of the film and the character complete with some hard boiled and entertaining scenes in which an inside man gets severely messed up; Doyle deals with two tails and also extensively bemoans his office locale, French Connection II is impressive. But then it becomes another animal, ruthlessly plunging us into a world of not only vacant storytelling (albeit for the good/effective) and pure disturbance. Maybe it's the dislike of needles, maybe not but it's the sort of jolt you get when watching torture porn; it goes from standard film with this and that to disturbing series of scenes involving human misery of some sort, much like a recent torture porn film.
I'd say the second segment of French Connection II is amongst the most unwatchable in any film, especially with content like the old lady complete with infection, making a little needless but jolting reminder what will happen if Doyle does not control his itching urge. If anything, French Connection II becomes TOO hard boiled and all of a sudden; you are longing for formula, you are longing for absolutely anything else bar what you're seeing. Much like the torture porn effect; having a character have sex and get high for an hour before sawing his head off is one thing but having someone smart, hard and upstanding like Doyle seem alienated and lost for forty minutes before having him tied to a bed and heroin injected into him is another thing: John Frankenheimer pulls off what people like Eli Roth cannot, and it was thirty years ago. And so, toward the end when the weak plot points involving the 'set up' and the 'finding of the location' through whatever means needed occur, you don't mind because you are out of the hell Doyle is put through. French Connection II is fun, entertaining and very unnerving when it takes its dive. Not one for the squeamish, unbelievably, but an impressive gritty crime film that delivers on certain levels.