Review of The Godfather (1972) by Steven S — 19 Feb 2015

"The Godfather" (1972).

Review by: Stephanie Smith.

Now I'm looking into an R rated movie that has far more appeal towards adults than children, and that of course is Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather". Although it may not seem like it, The Godfather is a prime candidate for one of the greatest movies of all time. It has 9.2 out of 10 rating on IMDB based 861,297 ratings and is second on IMDB's Top 250 Greatest Movies of All Time List (voted by users) behind only "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994). It is also ranked the second greatest film in American cinema behind "Citizen Kane" (1941) by the American Film Institute. The movie is based off the book of the same name by Mario Puzo which was a best seller. At the time, it was the highest grossing movie ever made and that's saying a lot considering its rated R and nobody under 17 is allowed to see it without a parent or guardian. It won three Oscars that year including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay. It also got nominated for seven other awards and it deserved all of them.

The movie starts off with Don Vito Corleone (played by Marlon Brando) hearing requests for favors from people on the day of his only daughter's wedding. Vito Corleone is the head of a New York Crime family. His youngest son is Michael Corleone (played by Al Pacino) who attends the wedding in a Marine Corps uniform. Michael however doesn't want to get involved in the crime his family commits and wants his own life. The story revolves around whether Michael can keep that commitment or not, but I won't spoil anything more than that.

The characters are very unique and have wonderful personalities. Apart from Vito and Michael, there is Vito's oldest son and the hot headed Santino "Sonny" Corleone (played by James Caan); the fat Peter Clemenza (played by Richard S. Castellano) who is a caporegime for the Corleone family; Vito's adopted son Tom Hagen (played by Robert Duvall) who is the family's lawyer and counselor; Michael's non-Italian girlfriend Kay Adams (played by Diane Keaton); Vito's middle son Fredo Corleone (played by John Cazale) who is weak and stupid and clearly not fit to be a future Don; Vito's only daughter Connie Corleone (played by Talia Shire); Salvatore Tessio (played by Abe Vigoda) who is another caporegime for the Corleone family and too many other lovable characters to count, most of which are Italian and all of them put up very wonderful performances. The acting is in fact so amazing, I am almost convinced the story for this movie actually happened in real life and there were hidden cameras to capture everything that happened.

Everything about this movie is wonderful and the only flaw with this movie is when Michael and Sollozzo are having a conversation in Italian, but the editors forgot to add English subtitles so unless you speak Italian, you won't be able to understand them. But in every other conversation in the movie, they added subtitles. They didn't even add English subtitles to the remastered Blu-ray release and I have no idea why. Apart from that, this film is an absolute masterpiece and one of my favorite movies of all time behind only the original "Star Wars" (1977). Although children would find it boring, if you're into gangster movies, especially well-organized gangster movies, then definitely watch the Godfather. Hell, anyone into movies absolutely needs to watch this film.

RATING: 10 out of 10.