French Connection II (1975)
Cracking sequel to William Friedkin's seminal thriller in which Gene Hackman's Popeye Doyle travels to Marseilles to find Alain Charnier, the drug smuggler that eluded him in New York. Blundering in to French police operations, Doyle is given a less than friendly welcome.
As good a Euro thriller as you'll find and surely an inspiration to every Italian crime film that nabbed itself an American name to headline it. This is brilliantly shot by John Frankenheimer in the seedy port of Marseilles with Hackman every bit as good as the earlier film that won him an Academy Award.
Midway through there's a genuinely disturbing twenty minutes that details Doyle's withdrawal after being forcibly addicted to heroin by Fernando Rey's drug ring, and all these years later it remains a hard watch and i always find it really off putting, were it not so well done it wouldn't have had the same impact but it totally kills the films momentum as well.
Thankfully the final third is a full on revenge thriller with Doyle taking no shit from the French in his destructive quest to dismantle the drugs ring culminating in an exhausting foot chase for Doyle along the docks as Rey is seemingly escaping by boat.
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