"Alan Charnier escaped to Marseilles. He was never caught," the first film tells us.
Cut to Doyle firing a slug through Charnier's chest at the end of FC II.
How can the two films be connected with such a huge inconsistency in story?
Erm, so you have a boat with a stash of heroin on it, and a cop who has just shot dead an unarmed man, do you think anyone involved is going to call the authorities?
shareSorry but I don't buy that.
The end of the first film states what actually happens... not what official sources, like police, know to be true.
In other words, even if authorities never knew about his capture/kill... the first film would've told us he'd been killed.
Movies know the absolute truths to any story.
He was never caught. Semantics maybe, but it's still true.
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Don't bother starting a topic titled, "Was I The Only One...?" Because you're not.
"He was never caught", was what was said about Charnier at the end of the 1st movie. Considering the second movie is set AFTER the events in the first one,how can there be any inconsistency? He was never caught, up till the point when Doyle finds him in France.
share"He was never caught", was what was said about Charnier at the end of the 1st movie. Considering the second movie is set AFTER the events in the first one,how can there be any inconsistency? He was never caught, up till the point when Doyle finds him in France.
French Connection 2 is a work of fiction and the original is only very loosely based on the truth.
"Perhaps he's wondering why someone would SHOOT a man before throwing him out of a plane..."
If that was the case, the first film should have concluded with, "To date, Charnier has not been captured" or "Charnier escaped to France."
To say he was "never caught" strongly implies absolute finality to the story, past, present and future included.
I'm guessing at the time they made the first movie there wasn't any thought to a sequel. Once the first film was released and was as popular as it was, a sequel was forced by the powers that be...
The French Connection was a non fiction novel based on a bust from the early 1960's.
The film was inspired by this novel - but it clearly set in 1970/71 and it clearly says in the end credits that it was a work of fiction.
So at the end of the 1971 film - the bad guy went free.
Four years later however...........................................
"Thank God For Darwin"
Both statements are true. Charnier escaped to Marseilles. Charnier was never caught.
He was shot dead. It does not make it inconsistent but in fact makes it even more accurate.
He fell into the lake and is eaten by fishes and rotted away at the bottom of it.
Also no one would report he’s missing or fell overboard. It’s over.