Great Movie, worthy of its reputation

Rating: Null/10 (27 November 2002)

In general, this film portrays the institution that is the crime family. The family is powerful because it is connected, intimidating and brutal. Either you are a friend of the family, or an enemy of the family. If you are a friend of the family, then you are subjugated by the family--you owe the family for being your friend. If you are an enemy of the family, then you are first threatened,and if you are still recalcitrant, then you are killed. (Evidently, the family operates in much the same way as the Roman Empire operated in its hey day.) Respecting everyone with whom you are involved and playing by the rules of the game are necessary virtues during times of peace and breaking them is a virtue during times of war. Because the aesthetic of this crime world is understandable to the viewer, the brutality that permeates it is palatable to the viewer.
As the seminal work of a genre that is now well developed, the movie still stands out, head and shoulders, both over all other movies in the crime-family genre and over most movies in any genre, period. What makes it so poignant is how it shows the chance transformation of university-educated war hero, into the head of the crime family. The viewer has high expectations for such a promising young man, for him to maybe become a lawyer, a businessman... to become anything but the leader of such an inhumane institution. But by circumstance or fate, he is forced to overcome a gauntlet of dangers and difficulties just to survive. And by surviving them, he becomes the don. But the transformation does not take obvious steps. The viewer does not realize what he, the university graduate, is becoming until the last scene when the viewer realizes what he has become--a reincarnation of his father, a don. Because every scene in the movie is gripping, we have a tendency to lose sight of the big picture. When we finally see that the war hero has become a don, we are compelled to reflect on his life, to see how his experience informed his choices and his actions, to see what got him to where he is, in the same way that we are, ever now and then, forced to reflect on our own decisions in life. 5/5