Review of The Godfather Part II (1974) by Alex M — 12 Aug 2012

[size=3]Francis Ford Coppola's second entry in his epic [i]Godfather [/i]series is considered in many quarters to be superior to the first film and one of the greatest movies in American history. Suffice it to say that while I consider [i]The Godfather, Part II [/i]to be the masterful continuation of a story which concentrates on the tragic erosion of a soul, there are problems with the film that have continued to prevent me from considering it a great movie. Coppola spends about a third of this enormous film showing us flashbacks in the life of Vito Corleone (played by Marlon Brando in the first film and Robert De Niro here). The flashbacks have the same misguided nostalgia for the "old values" of the Italian mafia that plagued the Sicily scenes in the first [i]Godfather[/i]. Watching these scenes, we get the uneasy sense that Coppola approves of Vito's code of honour and is attempting to contrast it with the failure of his son Michael. It is also clear that Coppola is trying to link the Corleone story with large themes about American capitalism, immigration and corruption...but he is not able to successfully explore all of the ideas generated by the story. The present-day scenes chronicling the slow decline of Michael Corleone are far superior and remind us of the mastery of the first film. Still, there are problems in this part of the film as well: the Cuba sequence is basically unnecessary, Lee Strasberg is rather bland as Hyman Roth, and Michael V. Gazzo is a laughable stooge and grossly over-the-top in his performance as Pentangali. Despite these flaws, [i]The Godfather, Part II [/i]is close to a masterpiece in the scenes concerning Pacino's Michael and his brother Fredo (wonderfully played by John Cazale in a much larger role than he was accorded in the first film). The family dynamics between the two brothers are complex, and the resolution of the film is riveting in its tension. We understand that Michael's soul has been almost completely corrupted, and yet we doubt that he could possibly carry through with his plans, which are almost lifted from a Shakespearean tragedy. These films have always been better when focusing on the Corleones, and less successful when attempting to understand the mob. The closing passages of [i]The Godfather, Part II [/i]generate a true nostalgia...not for a lost mafia code but for a lost family.[/size].

[size=3](BASIC) [/size].