Mother of all movies!!

Rating: 10/10 (27 January 2008)

I must've seen this movie more than a hundred times over the past seven years or so, but I still can't get enough of it. It was released in 1972 and there is hardly any doubt in my mind that it has truly stood the test of time. It is a brilliant adaptation of the bestseller novel 'The Godfather' by Mario Puzo.
The Godfather is a gangster movie set in the late 1940s & early 1950s around the lives of the Corleone family. Corleones are an Italian American Family in New York headed by 'Don' Vito Corleone. Vito has three sons, Sonny, Fredo & Michael and a daughter named Connie who is married to Carlo Rizzi. He also has an adopted son named Tom Hagen (German-Irish) who is the 'Consiglerie'(Advisor) of the family. The family is into the business of gambling, unions & liquor. They have all the judges and politicians 'in their pocket'. The Corleones also have influences over the media & the cops. They form a crime syndicate of 5 Italian- American families who have a stronghold over different parts of New York. Vito is assisted in his work by his 'Caporagemes' namely Clemenza & Tessio who carry out his orders.
The family is faced with problems when the refusal of Don Vito to join & support the drug business along with Virgil Sollozo leads to other families (Barzini, Tattaglia, Stracchi & Cuneo) going against them. The bad blood between the families results in Don Vito getting shot. Sonny, (The 'hothead')who is the eldest son gets killed and Michael has to step-up in this time of need. The emergence of Michael who was earlier reluctant to join the family business as the head of the family is the highlight of the movie. Michael imbibes all the unique qualities of his father and takes revenge for his family. I don't know where to begin with as far as appreciating this movie is concerned. It has the most amazing characterizations with all the characters being well etched and having their own individuality. If Vito was the 'reasonable man' who valued his family, Sonny is a hot head, Michael is rational, Fredo is weak & stupid, Tom is measured, Sollozo is ruthless. Even the supporting cast of Clemenza, Tessio, Don Barzini, Connie, Captain Mcklusky, Jhonny Fontaine,Jack Woltz,Mama etc are extremely well defined. The dialogues in the movie pack some serious punch. Some of them which I can recall on my fingertips are " It's not personal Sonny, its strictly business", " Only don't tell me that you are innocent , because it insults my intelligence & it makes me very angry" and finally " I'll make him an offer he cannot refuse". The screenplay seamlessly gels with the movie. Who can forget the scene at the Louis restaurant, the baptism scene at the end, or Tom Hagen informing his Don about Sonny's death. The movie has got this whole Italian milieu which takes you in a different world, makes you feel like a member of the Corleone family and identify with each and every character. Last but not the least, a tribute should be paid to the entire cast of the movie. No one could have acted better than Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone, Al Pacino as Michael, James Caan as Sonny or Robert Duvall as Tom. Even the performance of the supporting cast is phenomenal.
I would like to sincerely thank Francis Coppola for putting up such a gem of a movie which has really caught my imagination.