History has shown that film sequels can be a risky proposition; for every Godfather II, there’s a Grease 2. While The French Connection II certainly isn’t the failure that was Grease 2, it has been well documented that neither Gene Hackman nor the any of the filmmakers were very pleased with the film. Released in 1975, critical and audience reaction to the project was decidedly mixed. Certainly waiting four years to release the sequel didn’t help things and turning the directorial duties over from William Freidkin to John Frankenheimer was a risk. Those issues didn’t make The French Connection II a disappointment; that honor goes to some bad story decisions.
The biggest problem for the film is its setting. The action has moved from the Big Apple to Marseilles, France, and even though it has just as much grit, garbage, and malfeasance, the European environs produce a radical shift in tone because Popeye Doyle is no longer working on his own turf and is sorely out of his element. Perhaps as a result of this, Gene Hackman’s Doyle comes off looking almost clownish, because everything he does is so confused and over the top. Doyle’s determination to capture drug trader Alain Charnier (Fernando Ray), who eluded him at the end of the first film, has become his personal obsession.
Doyle is the last cop you’d put in France and expect it to work. The man knows maybe three words of French, rendering him barely able to function as a tourist, much less a cop. Everything he knows about police work is put to the test–he’s not allowed to carry a gun, his desk at the French police precinct is purposefully positioned next to the men’s room, etc. Doyle is paired with a French police detective named Barthélémy (Bernard Fresson), who is reminiscent of Roy Scheider’s Buddy “Cloudy” Russo in the first film. Of course their cultural differences serve as another factor in Doyle’s alienation toward European culture.
Of course, Popeye’s tough as nails attitude leaves no time for understanding different cultures. Throughout the film, he seems to believe that anyone can understand English, if it is spoken loudly enough. Maybe it was me but after awhile this approach just flat out annoyed me. Along the way, Popeye has his share of run-ins with local cops, for whom he has little patience or respect. Soon, he’s kidnapped by the heroin smugglers. Ironically, they keep him prisoner by getting him hooked on the stuff.
From then on, much of the film deals with Doyle’s addiction and his cold turkey withdrawal once the French police retrieve him. It’s during this section of the film that Hackman does his best work. He shows a range of emotions as he’s trying to kick the habit; once again making it clear why many consider him among his generation’s best actors. In one of the film’s best scenes (written by an uncredited Pete Hamill), Doyle gets drunk and launches into a dialogue about the New York Yankees to his clueless guards. There aren’t many scenes like that though and The French Connection II is largely devoid of the action and excitement that made its predecessor a classic.
French Connection II is a 1080p, 50GB disc billed at 1.85:1 but actually 1.78:1. The title elements and other opticals are on the soft side, but the rest of the film looks okay, though a step down from the fine look of The French Connection pre-Friedkin’s changes.
Like The French Connection, there are numerous audio and subtitle options, though attempts to remix the sequel in stereo is much less successful, and ultimately I preferred the original 1.0 mono track. The disc defaults to a 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio mix; Spanish and French mono tracks are also included and optional subtitles in English, Spanish, Mandarin, and Cantonese. The disc is closed-captioned and region-encoded “A.” A D-Box Motion Control Systems feature is included.
As with The French Connection, French Connection II carries over supplementary material from the September 2001 DVD release, notably an audio commentary by John Frankenheimer and a separate commentary with Gene Hackman and producer Robert Rosen.
New to Blu-ray is a wonderful half-hour documentary, Frankenheimer: In Focus, a high-def show that highlights this and Black Sunday (1977), another Fox title, but touches upon his early television work and films (including high-def clips from The Manchurian Candidate and The Train), and his late-career success and return to television (including excerpts from Ronin). William Friedkin, Ed Lauter, Bruce Dern and Frankenheimer’s daughter and widow, the former actress Evans Evans, are among the interviewees. Gene Hackman returns for another Conversation, in which he’s insightful and honest about the film’s production and the final result. High-def trailers for French Connection II and The French Connection, and a still gallery round out the package.
