An American Masterpiece: An Offer You Cannot Refuse

Rating: 10/10 (29 April 2006)

Based on Mario Puzzo's book, The Godfather translated to the screen is an American masterpiece in the study of management and command. As a serious film it is one of the few American films which rises above syrupy American romantic comedy.
Meet Vito Corleone (Marlin Brando). He's a self made American gangster who came up biting and crawling. The American mob however is different from its Sicilian progenitor racked with such vendetta driven violence that whole cities are decimated. The American offspring is a business. Wars (going to the mattresses) happen according to one character only every 10 years and then only to flush the trash out of the ranks, almost a statement one might expect to hear from a career military man.
Don Vito wants to make his second son Michael (Al Pacino), a war hero into a real American of culture, rank, and distinction. Third Son Sonny (James Caan)will head the mob. Elder Son Fredo (John Cazale)is a dolt the others will have to look after. Adopted son, a non-Italian, Tom Hagan (Robert Duval) slides through a shadowy zone of near legitimacy as an attorney for the mob.
War strikes. Rival gangsters want to sell drugs. The Don is firm but is almost assassinated; Sonny is killed. Only Michael is left to head the family business, defeating the Don's grand design. Will Michael survive to keep both the biological and mob family together?
Senator Pat Geary (G.D. Spradlin), an official suborned by the mob, tells Michael that "The Family" is Michael's delusion.
It was an all-star performance by the entire cast.
Though I read the book many years ago. I hesitated to see the movie out of respect for the sentiments of many Italians who believe the film to be anti-Italian. After watching the film many years after its release I decided it is not anti-Italian as much as it is the finest study of leadership the American theatre has exhibited. Only Twelve O'Clock High (Gregory Peck) and Major Dundee (Charlton Heston; Richard Harris) come close in the study of the personality of command.
I prefer the combined version of Godfather I & II.
In the gangster film genre, the comparables ST VALENTINES DAY MASSACRE (Jason Robarts), CAPONE (Ben Gazzara), VALACHI PAPERS (Charles Bronson), and LEPKE (Tony Curtis) are all great in their own right with splendid acting but nonetheless they barely approach the eloquence of THE GODFATHER.