I am handing this film the best grade of all three Godfather films,
because it takes what made the first "Godfather"
film so good and expands on it in ways that make it the most enjoyable,
thrilling, and engaging of the three films.
"The Godfather Part III" is essentially the first installment
set thirty years later. Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) is in the role
of Godfather, which was occupied by his father Vito Corleone (Marlon
Brando) in the first film. Both of these men had sons who wanted nothing
to to do with the family business. Both of them had a hot-headed relative
whose lack of thought before action threatens to ruin all that the
family has achieved. Both films have their respective Godfathers being
hospitalized after the the first hour of each film. Both have finales
that have the Godfather attending an event while a series of orchestrated
hits are put into action against those who have acted against the
family. I'm sure there are similarities that I am failing to mention,
but these are the key ones that need to be noted.
The main difference between this film and the first is that this time
around the Godfather is trying to do things legitimately. Although
I guess it can be said that even Brando's Godfather was a man of principal
since he would not allow the family to enter into the business of
narcotics, despite the obvious financial advantages, because it was
not the sort of business the he did. Pacino's Godfather wants to set
the record straight and restore dignity and honor to his family's
name. He does this by making a sizable donation to the impoverished
people of Sicily and angling towards a stake in a large European organization
called Immobiliare. He finds that these attempts are futile as, just
as he thinks he's out, he gets pulled back into the mob game.
Other storylines are interweaved with Pacino's such as the budding
romance between Pacino's daughter (Sofia Coppola) and his nephew (Andy
Garcia). This is an interesting plotline that the Godfather does not
want to see develop any further. He attempts, on numerous occasions,
to persuade his hot-headed nephew, who is the son of James Caan's
Sonny from the first movie, to stay away from his daughter. He gets
little in the line of results from his pleas. There are also threads
involving a dying Pope, a local thug who bites off a little more than
he can chew, and the Godfather's entertainer son.
These various plots are all weaved together flawlessly by Francis
Ford Coppola, who displays some of his well renowned visual flair
in this film, whereas it seemed to be fairly lacking in the first
two parts. This film has a very nice flow to it that carries it from
beginning to end with a grace and beauty that have come to expect
from Coppola after seeing films such as "Bram
Stoker's Dracula" and "Apocalypse
Now". He has a knack for finding beauty in the most obscene
of stories and unlikeliest of places. He finds the beauty in death
and inner turmoil and manages to explore it to it's fullest extent.
This film definitely stands as one of his finest works.
This film manages such lofty praise due to it's strong performances
from the two male leads. Al Pacino delivers one of the best, if not
the best, performances of his career. He takes the man he made decidedly
one-dimensional in the second installment and makes him as human as
it is possible to make a mob boss. The range he demonstrates in this
film is exceptional. He is man who loves a family that barely even exists anymore. His
brothers are all dead and his sister is little more than a sheep following
the herd. His wife is gone. Both of his children reject the lives
he wants them to have. Despite all this he thinks he can make right
out of his life by making the family business legit. He finds this
to be a difficult proposition and will find himself overwhelmed in
more ways than one before the film comes to it's thrilling conclusion.
The other notable performance I alluded to is that of Andy Garcia
("The Untouchables"). He is a live-wire ready to shock the
shit out of anything that comes near him. Much like his father, he
is quick to seek out violence as the answer to the family's problems.
He resorts to his whims against the wishes of the Godfather, which
never results in good things for anyone involved. Garcia has to deal
with the restraints of his position in the family, as well as the
mixed feelings of forbidden love that he has for the Godfather's daughter.
Garcia delivers a very well restrained performance that walks the
tightrope of control, or lack thereof, with a steady brilliance.
The only real blight on this film is the much-maligned performance
of Sofia Coppola. She proves, with this performance, that she is a
much better director ("The Virgin Suicides") than actress.
In all fairness I can't say that it's all her fault. I think her father
and Mario Puzo fell asleep at the wheel while writing the lines for
her character. They wrote her lines, as if they were for a twelve
year old girl, rather than for a woman in her early twenties. Even
Meryl Streep would have a hard time digesting these lines if she were
handed them. Thankfully Sofia's character pays off, as she delivers
one of the films more poignant scenes at the height of the film's
emotional arc.
Until the final twenty minutes, this film was in a dead heat with
the first installment for the honor of best of the trilogy. It was
at this point that it raised the bar and pulled ahead of the first
two with relative ease. This is a direct result of the way Coppola
constructs the brilliant conclusion to this epic saga of a trilogy
that spans some nine hours of film time in total. He does so by taking
the same elements that made the conclusion of the first film so gripping
and adding in a fairly large helping of emotion to the mix. By doing
this he maximizes the viewer's attachment to the film at the very
end of the entire trilogy's arc, which makes for a wonderfully satisfying
conclusion that I wouldn't dare spoil for anyone.
The hardcore "Godfather" fans of the world don't seem to
care too much for this film. I can't say I know why. To me "The
Godfather Part III" takes the best elements of the previous two
films and refines them to create a better crafted and smoother paced
film that should keep the most militant of filmgoers planted in their
seats from beginning to end.
Plus it's a hell of a lot better sequel than "The
Godfather Part II".
