Almost a true classic

Rating: 8/10 (1 January 2016)

Filled with a truly iconic main character, highly memorable and believable supporting cast and a gripping and gritty story line, this movie is 80% the reverse hero masterpiece of the original 2 Godfather movies. Unfortunately, that is a bit like claiming to be 80% virgin. The problem here seems to be Brian DePalma similar affliction. He is a pretty good director but he thinks he's a truly great director. This is kind of a short range period piece, made in the early 1980s about a story starting in the late 1970s and that's part of the problem. It feels like a film made in the early 80s! Imagine you could find a person who simultaneously knew western cinema but somehow had no idea who Marlon Brando, Diane Keyton, Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, Talia Schire or James Caan were and they had never seen the Godfather movies. You show them one and two and then ask "When were these movies made?". They couldn't tell you. They are set in a period spanning the 1920s through the 1960s and the cars, costumes and sets show that perfectly but the movies themselves could have been made last year. DePalma unfortunately chose to go with an electronic music sound track and that screws the feel of the piece. Of course, the music from a late 70s disco is going to be laden with that cheesy synthesizer sound and they did mix a few classic non-synth songs into background music. That's totally appropriate but using second generation synthesizers of 1981 to record dramatic background themes for the movie was a terrible call. Godfather's original soundtrack uses instruments and modalities that are timeless and provide no insight into when the work was made. That's why I would love to see this flick respectfully remade into the classic it by all means should have been.