Greatest Movie in World History? Maybe. Maybe Not.

Rating: 8/10 (17 August 2006)

The people who vote on the Internet Movie Database have ranked "The Godfather" as the greatest film ever in human history. Which is nothing to sneeze at, and deserves some seriously thought. I watched the film, thought it was great, but hardly found it to be the greatest film ever made. I mean, if you told me "Citizen Kane" was the greatest film ever made, I would wholeheartedly agree. And personally, as far as gangster movies go -- with or without Al Pacino -- I think the real choice should be "Scarface". But I'm not professionally trained as a movie critic, so maybe I'm missing something.
I asked my supervisor and a co-worker about the film, and while they both thought the film was good, they really did not think it was some amazing masterpiece. My supervisor said, "maybe it's good because it is so real", but that's not a convincing reason and how "real" it is I cannot say for sure.
If nothing else, the film might be great simply because it has become so cliché. The horse head, the Marlon Brando voice, the gun behind the toilet and the line "an offer he can't refuse" are all part of pop culture these days (over 30 years later). But does being cliché make the film great? I guess that would make "Star Wars" the greatest film ever made, which is certainly not true (though not a bad film by any means).
And sure, you have powerful and memorable performances. James Caan is amazing, Marlon Brando is a bit over-the-top (a mumbling, lock-jawed godfather? sure...). And Al Pacino is of course great as always, maybe more so here than anywhere else. Not only does he have more range here than any other film than "Scent of a Woman" (more often than not he simply repeats a variation of his Michael Corleone role), but he is so young and plain that he is not even recognizable as Al Pacino in many scenes (I didn't recognize him until 30 minutes into the picture).
I haven't yet mentioned the plot: an aging mafia boss (Marlon Brando) hands control over to his son (Al Pacino) when the father becomes ill, though he hoped never to do so since his son is Ivy League educated. Brando's role is actually quite small compared to the attention he is given (the film is really about Pacino coming of age).
The directing is decent. Nothing special, but not awful, either. Very real and almost gritty (but not dark). The acting is great. The music is perfect. The only thing that really needed work was the fact that many of the Italian scenes had no subtitles and were thus lost in (lack of) translation. The entire Sciliy subplot and Appollonia were excellent and could not have been improved upon.
I'm sure much more could have been said, but I'll cut myself off here. Certainly looking forward to Part II (though keeping my hopes and expectations low) and maybe someday I'll see Part III (though I've been warned not to).