I thought the first Family of Cops film was actually pretty good and so decided to watch this one right after. Unfortunately, the second one is not as good.
For one thing, an inexplicable focus on Bronson's family's religion. Even though the case revolves around the killing of a Catholic priest, from the very beginning we're bashed over the head over and over and over with the fact that the Feins are Jewish (something that I don't remember being referred to at all in the first film) leading us to believe that it will somehow be relevant to the plot. Maybe there will be animosity between the Catholic and Jewish communities because the former suspects the latter of being responsible for the priest's murder. Or, conversely, there might be a coming together of the two faiths to deal with the crisis. Or maybe we'll see the Feins facing anti-Semitism from fellow police officers or the public as they try to do their jobs. But no, none of this happens. The family's faith has absolutely no bearing on the plot, leading you to wonder why it is given such prominence.
Second, I had wondered during AFoC 1 why detective Anne Meyers seemed to have so much screen time despite the actress' acting not being exactly dazzling and the character not serving any real purpose other than to gaze lovingly at old Paul. In 2, she has even more screen time but still has nothing to do apart from spend most of her shift time with him - although she's supposed to be his son's police partner - and show her adoration. After I'd finished watching the film, I saw on IMDB that Kim Weeks (Anne) has only eleven acting credits to her name, three of which are for this trilogy - and that she and Charles Bronson got married the year after this came out. So it's a case of Bronson doing his usual thing of forcing directors to put his current girlfriend/wife in his films. Unlike Jill Ireland, however, Weeks has no acting ability and isn't even given a storyline or justification for being there.
On a related point, none of the women seem to get a fair shake of the stick. For me, the most interesting characters are Kate and Jackie. But they, just like the other ladies, seem to be only there to orbit around the men and/or look after children. I know it's A Family of Cops but with Kate being a lawyer, you would think they could easily do more with her and her job throughout the story, not just at the beginning. Even worse, Jackie, who actually is on the path to also becoming a cop, virtually disappears halfway through. More scenes of her experiences at the police academy and fewer scenes with Bronson's talentless squeeze would give some much-needed life to this film.
Even with the film's violent plot, we have far too many Hallmark Channel-type scenes where we're boringly shown how loving and non-judgemental the Fein family are with each other. As an example, Kate obtains the release of a very nasty 12-year-old at the beginning. The kid proceeds to kill Eddie's partner and place another officer in hospital. This should be the basis for recriminations and tension between Eddie and Kate, at least for a while. It would make for good drama. But no - Eddie has absolutely no hard feelings towards his sister and that whole plotline is just dropped. Because cops apparently don't care when their partners are killed.
Lastly, the Russians are so stereotypically one-note evil that they kill a priest just for knowing about a murder that they committed even though he can't ever reveal what he knows since it was told to him in the confessional. They don't realise that killing him is much more risky than just letting him be? Then they threaten a whole family of cops (and lawyer.) Then they assault them all. Eventually, they try to gun down one of those cops and his wife and kids in their home. Come on! If Russian gangsters were that stupid then there would be no Russian mafia, because they would all be either dead or in prison.
For one thing, an inexplicable focus on Bronson's family's religion. Even though the case revolves around the killing of a Catholic priest, from the very beginning we're bashed over the head over and over and over with the fact that the Feins are Jewish (something that I don't remember being referred to at all in the first film) leading us to believe that it will somehow be relevant to the plot. Maybe there will be animosity between the Catholic and Jewish communities because the former suspects the latter of being responsible for the priest's murder. Or, conversely, there might be a coming together of the two faiths to deal with the crisis. Or maybe we'll see the Feins facing anti-Semitism from fellow police officers or the public as they try to do their jobs. But no, none of this happens. The family's faith has absolutely no bearing on the plot, leading you to wonder why it is given such prominence.
Second, I had wondered during AFoC 1 why detective Anne Meyers seemed to have so much screen time despite the actress' acting not being exactly dazzling and the character not serving any real purpose other than to gaze lovingly at old Paul. In 2, she has even more screen time but still has nothing to do apart from spend most of her shift time with him - although she's supposed to be his son's police partner - and show her adoration. After I'd finished watching the film, I saw on IMDB that Kim Weeks (Anne) has only eleven acting credits to her name, three of which are for this trilogy - and that she and Charles Bronson got married the year after this came out. So it's a case of Bronson doing his usual thing of forcing directors to put his current girlfriend/wife in his films. Unlike Jill Ireland, however, Weeks has no acting ability and isn't even given a storyline or justification for being there.
On a related point, none of the women seem to get a fair shake of the stick. For me, the most interesting characters are Kate and Jackie. But they, just like the other ladies, seem to be only there to orbit around the men and/or look after children. I know it's A Family of Cops but with Kate being a lawyer, you would think they could easily do more with her and her job throughout the story, not just at the beginning. Even worse, Jackie, who actually is on the path to also becoming a cop, virtually disappears halfway through. More scenes of her experiences at the police academy and fewer scenes with Bronson's talentless squeeze would give some much-needed life to this film.
Even with the film's violent plot, we have far too many Hallmark Channel-type scenes where we're boringly shown how loving and non-judgemental the Fein family are with each other. As an example, Kate obtains the release of a very nasty 12-year-old at the beginning. The kid proceeds to kill Eddie's partner and place another officer in hospital. This should be the basis for recriminations and tension between Eddie and Kate, at least for a while. It would make for good drama. But no - Eddie has absolutely no hard feelings towards his sister and that whole plotline is just dropped. Because cops apparently don't care when their partners are killed.
Lastly, the Russians are so stereotypically one-note evil that they kill a priest just for knowing about a murder that they committed even though he can't ever reveal what he knows since it was told to him in the confessional. They don't realise that killing him is much more risky than just letting him be? Then they threaten a whole family of cops (and lawyer.) Then they assault them all. Eventually, they try to gun down one of those cops and his wife and kids in their home. Come on! If Russian gangsters were that stupid then there would be no Russian mafia, because they would all be either dead or in prison.