Arguably the greatest of all mob films

Rating: 10/10 (16 January 2015)

Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972) is undoubtedly one of the best movies ever made because to me it was a pitch perfect mafia film that definitely compares to the greatness of Scorsese's GoodFellas (1990), and Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde (1967) but so much better than those two great films put together. The best summary for this film would be about an aging mob boss named Don Vito Corleone (played by Marlon Brando in an Oscar winning performance) who in a few years time is going to retire from his position as Godfather and pass the Corleone family leadership to his reluctant war hero son Michael (played by Al Pacino in a performance that should have won him the Oscar as 1972s best supporting actor). Besides GoodFellas and Bonnie and Clyde having the most obvious thing in common with this film is that all three films talk about the mob, and the second thing that all three films have in common is that they give people who watch them how ruthless the mob can be in real life. Though I didn't read the Mario Puzo novel I understood this film perfectly thanks to all the perfectly acted performances by Brando and Pacino, but as well as Robert Duvall as the family lawyer Tom Hagen, James Caan as Sonny, as well as John Cazale as Fredo. Coppola's film not only depicts how ruthless the mob can be in some instances but also how violent the mob can be as well as those were the perfect requirements for movies like this. The one thing I really disagreed with most with the 45th Oscar ceremony is why Marlon Brando rejected his 2nd academy award for lead acting when in this movie he gave the best performance of his entire since A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and On the Waterfront (1954), and as to why Francis Ford Coppola didn't win the Academy Award for best director when I really do think he deserved it. But in the end this film is an absolute masterpiece from start to finish.