Review of The Godfather Part III (1990) by Filipeneto — 19 Feb 2018

This film follows the story of "The Godfather," which chronicles the journey of the Corleone family through the violent world of organized crime. In this film, an elderly Michael Corleone lives haunted by the crimes he committed and looking desperately, but unsuccessfully, to clean his family of any taint through its legitimation and links to the Vatican.

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the novels of Mario Puzo, who collaborated in the writing of the script, it kept most of the cast of the previous films, made in the seventies, and bring new and important characters. The soundtrack goes from Nino Rota to Carmine Coppola, father of director and Talia Shire, actress who also enters this film. It didn't won any Academy Award but was nominated for seven statuettes.

More than fifteen years after "The Godfather II", this film is, almost, the black sheep of the "family". Criticized, misunderstood, even somewhat ridiculed, will always live in the shadow of the two films that preceded it, and which are undoubtedly two giants of cinema. And if we want to compare them, this is the loser because it can no longer surprise us, despite maintaining excellent action scenes and a Michael Corleone much more paternalistic, living threatened by his ghosts (in particular his brother, which is a very smart way to explore the cruelest act of the criminal life of this mobster). I didn't quite understand his position on the daughter's romance with Vincent, her cousin. The connection to the Catholic Church also seemed a bit forced, as if it had been snapped on in the script. Al Pacino has remained up to the challenge and managed to perfectly display the psychological contradictions of his character. Andy Garcia also had a great performance and Joe Mantegna can say that this, probably, it was the best performance he did. This is a film that is worth seeing, mostly if we didn't compare it to the previous two films.