Family Is Destiny

Rating: 8/10 (30 May 2015)

The rise of a great man is set against the fall of his son in this powerful second installment of the "Godfather" franchise. "The Godfather Part II" is an eminently worthy successor to the classic first film, not nearly as accessible but entertaining and gripping in its own right.
When we reconnect with Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), he is firmly established as head of the Corleone crime family, now based in Lake Tahoe, Nevada and as lethal as ever. As Michael asserts control over his dominion, we occasionally go back in time to see his father Vito (Robert De Niro) finding his own path to criminal power.
Michael speaks with more authority than honesty, we learn right away. "Senator, we're both part of the same hypocrisy, but never think it applies to my family," he says. The irony and tragedy of "Godfather Part II" is how that hypocrisy is in fact never stronger than when it comes to Michael's family, which is all but destroyed by Michael's iron grip in service of evil ends.
As sequels go, few are regarded as measuring up to the magnificence of "Godfather Part II." It's everything you expect from the first film, building on the final moments we saw there of Michael accepting his destiny as Mafia don and developing what that all means. Weighing in at over three hours, with lengthy flashbacks, it manages to hold your focus as director-co-writer Francis Ford Coppola plays cards you didn't know were in the deck. The pacing is deliberate, never ponderous.
Like the first "Godfather," I found I enjoyed "Part II" more with repeat viewings. Occasionally, as in an opening sequence set in Sicily that is revisited late in the movie, the drama gets a bit strained as the revenge theme is overplayed. Otherwise, the same subtlety that makes the first movie so great is in ample evidence here.
Pacino is fantastic as the older, harder Michael. We don't quite root for him anymore, the way we did in the first film (another weakness of "Part II" as I see it), but his command in the role is startling to witness. In the first movie, we saw him get bloody; this time the wounds are more internal as he plays his scenes with dead-eyed calm. "I've already made my move," he tells his brother Fredo (John Cazale), regarding his latest venture in Cuba with a suspect business partner named Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg).
Cazale and Strasberg give the most memorable supporting performances (De Niro is more a co-lead even though he has less screen time than Pacino). Cazale is more of a hot mess than ever, entertainingly so until the stakes get too high. Strasberg is so low-key and charming you almost find yourself trusting him, until a key scene when his mask slips regarding a former associate named Moe Greene.
Other performances, many by returnees from the first film, are accomplished if somewhat superfluous, particularly Robert Duvall as Michael's adopted brother Tom Hagen, Diane Keaton as Michael's wife Kay, and Talia Shire as Michael's sister Connie. All of them have big moments, but are also left in the dust, somewhat by design as the theme of this film is Michael's loss of family ties.
The Vito sections could have been deadly, but Coppola here is at his peak as a director, working from a section of the source novel by co-screenwriter Mario Puzo that was left off the first film. Taking his cues from Marlon Brando's original characterization, but lending his own unmistakable spin, De Niro plays Vito as coy, gentle, but highly dangerous.
I love how Vito speaks almost entirely in his native Sicilian dialect, except at certain key moments when he uses English, depicted here as the language of power. He handles the problem of a don who wants to "wet my beak" in Vito's business with cold calculation. It amounts to a power play not only against the don, but his buddies Clemenza and Tessio, who soon find themselves taking orders from their former underling.
The film climaxes, as the first movie did, with a trio of interconnected sequences showing Michael's brutal effectiveness against his enemies. This time, however, there's no sense of triumph. Michael's revenge is too excessive, his "enemies" too reduced or ambiguous to merit their ends in our eyes. That of course is the message of "Godfather Part II."
Ultimately, "Godfather Part II" is a masterful if muted examination of the price of family, how the ties that bind too often strangle. I don't think it packs the same punch as the first film, but hardly any film does. What it does well is bring the themes of the first film into sharper focus, so sharp they leave one feeling the scars.