The first film set it up for a sequel - capturing Fernando Rey - and this had the decent idea of turning Popeye (Gene Hackman) into a junkie. So he's blundering around France when he's kidnapped and injected.
The film thus doesn't have the legenday New York touch of the first movie but it has scuzzy France and a director who'd lived in that country, John Frankenheimer.
Look, I appreciate they tried to do something different with it being in France. By having Popeye be a fish out of water meant there was no fleshing out of his character not really - he's mostly befuddled. He has a French cop he clashes with (Bernard Fresson) though that feels like squabbling.
There's some action - chases (one on foot at the end - not as exciting as a car), gun fight, a flood. I just didn't much like it. Felt padded with chases, scenes of Hackman being given drugs and going into detox.
Fun to see Cathleen Nesbitt as a druggie old lady. Nice location filming.
Not sure what else they could've done. More interaction with French people definitely. More Hackman and Fresson. Maybe another American in there, to give Popeye someone to talk to.
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