Gene Hackman's Most Underrated Performance Is A Sequel To One Of His Most Celebrated

Although long-running franchises have become a seemingly permanent part of our current cinematic landscape, there's an argument to be made that even the most consistently high-quality series are subject to diminishing returns. The question of whether a sequel can match or surpass an original is still a topic of debate, and it's one that reaches all the way back to an era when sequels were hardly as common as they are now. While the debate makes sense on the surface — after all, on paper, how can any sequel be as fresh and unique as an original? — it's perhaps based on the wrong question. Maybe, despite all the constant franchise rankings and the like, we shouldn't be asking whether a sequel surpasses its predecessor, but rather what new depths and richness are brought to the material that enhances the franchise as a whole.

It's through that lens that I view 1975's "French Connection II," the sequel to 1971's trailblazing and award-winning "The French Connection." In the '70s sequels were looked upon with much suspicion, so while "The Godfather Part II" got a pass for being made by generally the exact same creative team as the first film, "French Connection II" had an uphill battle by having a new director (John Frankenheimer), a new writing team (Robert Dillon, Laurie Dillon, and Alexander Jacobs), a new producer (Robert L. Rosen), a new setting (Marseille instead of New York City) and, with the exception of Fernando Rey and Gene Hackman, a totally new cast. It also was a more blatant work of fiction than its predecessor, with the original film being loosely based on real-life cops Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso's pursuit of a heroin smuggling ring. The first movie even ended with a "here's what happened to the people involved" post-script. For all these reasons, "French Connection II" seemed destined to be a mess and a certain failure.

The fact that it's not only a fantastic film in its own right but also an excellent companion piece to "The French Connection" makes "French Connection II" a minor miracle. So much of its success can be chalked up to star Gene Hackman, who, given his newfound Hollywood status and prior triumph playing Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle (Hackman won winning the Academy Award for his performance in the first film) could have easily coasted through a victory-lap performance. Instead, his work in "French Connection II" may actually surpass the original film, and it's only because the movie is a sequel to a classic that it remains one of his most underrated performances.

One of the most impressive aspects of "French Connection II" is that Hackman and Frankenheimer don't succumb to the temptation to soften Popeye. Given the character's popularity (and Hackman's star status), a sequel to "The French Connection" could've gone a similar route as a couple of the "Dirty Harry" films did: de-emphasizing the character's rougher edges in favor of making him a generically rousing, less problematic hero figure. That trap is also basically what happened to Sylvester Stallone's John Rambo, who appeared in "First Blood" as a very complicated antihero, and then turned into a gun-toting superhero for the "Rambo" sequels. Harry Callahan and Popeye Doyle were initial examples of the "rogue cop" character archetype — an anti-authoritarian authority figure — and their portrayals were appropriately nuanced. Sure, they got the job done, but at what cost? By the mid-'80s, this archetype had transformed into the cuddlier likes of Axel Foley (from "Beverly Hills Cop"), Martin Riggs (from "Lethal Weapon") and John McClane (from "Die Hard").

"French Connection II" could've taken the first film's arrogant, aggressive, unrepentantly racist and flat-out dangerous Popeye and made him a similarly aspirational figure, but Hackman and Frankenheimer refuse to let Doyle's problematic aspects become normalized. This is all the more impressive given how much license Hackman had to reconceive and reconfigure his characterization — not only was he working with new writers, a new director, and newfound clout, but the plot of the film sees Popeye dropped into a completely unfamiliar city in a foreign country. It would've been easy for Hackman to fully put Popeye on the back foot, so to speak, and use the opportunity to garner some audience sympathy for a man who concluded the prior film by letting his prey escape while mistakenly murdering an FBI Agent whom he just happened to loathe. Instead, Hackman keeps Popeye consistent, a choice which doesn't just keep the film morally sound but also allows the very stylistically different sequel to have some continuity with its predecessor.

"French Connection II" is a thrilling, neo-noir thriller all its own, as Doyle and his Marseilles contact, Inspector Barthélémy (Bernard Fresson), try like mad to bust up a drug smuggling ring and capture its elusive leader, Alain Charnier (Rey), before he disappears into the shadows again. By itself, the movie is an excellent addition to Frankenheimer's brass-knuckle noirs like "I Walk the Line," "52 Pick-Up," and "Ronin." However, it's Hackman's performance which elevates it to being one of the best sequels of all time. 

Like other series with problematic characters at their center — including recent examples like "Breaking Bad" and "Joker: Folie à Deux" — "French Connection II" is not-so-secretly an indictment of its protagonist. The film has sympathy for Popeye, but doesn't request that he ever be forgiven for his actions. For about the first half of the film, Popeye is an obnoxious tyrant, pushing Barthélémy and others around at will. This aspect, combined with Popeye being a fish-out-of-water character having to operate in a strange land, is a joke both on the character himself and any of his fans in the audience. Here is your no-nonsense rogue cop, the film seems to say, acting exactly as you'd expect or maybe even hope he would, and yet none of his methods work; they just make him look even more pathetic than he already did.

Hackman and Frankenheimer don't let up on the character at that point, though. They go deeper, using the plot point of Charnier capturing Doyle and forcibly turning him into a heroin addict while in captivity to really tear the character down to the bone. Though Frankenheimer doesn't shoot the movie in the same gritty, street-level, induced documentary style that William Friedkin shot the original, it's during this sequence that the movie reaches similar depths of bleak despair as shots of ruins in the middle of NYC did in the first film. After the Marseilles police discover the now-a-junkie Doyle and force him to go through withdrawal from drugs cold turkey, there's a long, unbroken monologue that Hackman gets to deliver as Doyle which is one of the most emotionally naked moments I've ever seen any American actor have on screen. In it, Doyle relays a story about how he used to be in the minor leagues with the likes of Mickey Mantle and, instead of pursuing glory as a ball player, decided to join the police force instead. It's Doyle at simultaneously his most human and most pathetic, and Hackman plays the scene with incredible intelligence and grace.

From there, "French Connection II" earns its justice-by-any-means-necessary grit, and not in any usual manner, either. The film's lesson is far more complex and nuanced than a platitude or two, as Hackman and Frankenheimer constantly question whether justice is actually being served and in what way, giving Doyle a redemption arc which may be anything but. Hackman's performance in "French Connection II" is one of the all-time great studies of fragile, stubborn, toxic masculinity, and it's so impressive that he lends Doyle new depths and richness while retaining the core of the character that won him the Oscar. Hackman takes what could've been simple pulp and infuses it with aching, relatable humanity, proving once again how invaluable a performer he was and how massive a loss it is that he's gone. Despite his absence, it's somehow comforting to know that his work will live on — like Popeye, Hackman's legacy simply refuses to ever let go.