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.
No comments:
Post a Comment