French Connection II (DVD)

French Connection II

Picking up two or three years where the original left off, narcotics officer Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle (Gene Hackman) is still searching for the elusive Frenchman drug kingpin Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey). Orders from the captain send Doyle to Marseille, France, to track down the criminal mastermind and bust his drug ring. Once in France, Doyle is met by Inspector Henri Barthlmy (Bernard Fresson), who resents his rude and crude crimefighting demeanor. Doyle then begins to find himself as a fish out of water in France, where he is matched with a language he can't understand.

Determined to find Charnier on his own, Popeye escapes his French escorts and ends up being kidnapped by Charnier's henchmen. For several days, Doyle is injected with heroin in effort to force him into capitulation; after he cracks and provides Charnier what he knows, he's dumped alive but addicted in front of police headquarters.

In effort to save both his life and his reputation, Barthlmy immediately quarantines the abused and humiliated Doyle on a long and agonizing cold turkey withdrawal from the heroin. Supervising his cure, and at his side with both emotional support and taunts questioning his toughness, Barthlemy provokes Doyle to maintain through the cycle of physical withdrawal. When at length well enough to be on his feet, Doyle recalls the hideout/drug warehouse he was brought to.

Doyle is joined by Barthelemy and other inspectors for a climatic raid on Charnier and his henchmen at their hideout. After a long gun battle, the raid is successful, but Charnier escapes yet again. Doyle, in an epic foot chase of Charnier sailing out of Marseille Harbor on his yacht, takes his gun out; calls his name, and finally shoots Charnier dead as his yacht sails away.