Great performances, but often tedious drama.

Rating: 8/10 (31 January 2018)

7.5 out of 10 for clarification.
The Godfather's opening scene is masterful effort, with the camera slowly edging backwards to expose more of Brando's figure to the audience, accompanied by a severely emotional and haunting monologue. After viewing this scene, I conceived the notion that at least a large amount of the film will follow this trend. It was eventually made clear that I was misled.
It's not that there aren't other instances of great performances, dialogue and plot twists. The issue is simply that a considerable bulk of the picture is borderline tedious drama, and that much of this drama doesn't in fact contribute to character development. For example, Michael's shift of agenda seems to happen remarkably quickly, and without sufficient character development to provide explanation for this.