"You Can Never Lose Your Family"

Rating: Null/10 (26 February 1999)

Here you have the supreme example of a sequel which eclipses its original. "The Godfather Part II" is a majestic tragedy, operatic in its sweep, gigantic in its architecture and a stand-alone masterpiece in its own right - but a film which also amplifies and explains the film which went before it. In the closing reverie sequence, the superbly-staged flashback, we finally understand what has driven Michael Corleone and why he has so persistently humiliated Tom Hagan.
Several narrative threads are embroidered into Michael's story. The scene shifts neatly from Sicily in 1901 to New York in 1917 and 1941, and to Nevada and Cuba in 1958. The period detail is nothing short of wonderful. The vendetta is enacted in the exact same locations which featured in Domingo's "Cavalleria Rusticana". Same streets, same theme.
Brooding ominously over everything is The Family. Many of the characters try to escape its clutches - Connie, Kay, Fredo, Frankie Pentangeli - but The Family is all-powerful and its reach is long. Michael was Don Vito's favourite son, and this is more a curse than a blessing. The college-educated marine officer expected and deserved to carve out a destiny for himself, but The Family had other plans. Chosen by fate to be the new Don, Michael succeeds brilliantly but also succumbs to despair as love eludes him and paranoia sets in. "You wanna wipe everybody out?" asks Tom. "Just my enemies," answers Michael - as he plans the death of his own sibling. By the end, Michael's very existence is surrounded by, and predicated upon, death.
Tom Hagan is the non-Italian who has, through loyalty and intelligence, risen high in The Family. The Corleone lawyer and majordomo, Tom can always be relied upon to be calm, efficient and discreet. Robert Duvall was rightly accorded second billing after Pacino for his fascinating, understated performance. "Tom isn't going to sit in with us," Michael tells Johnny Ola, and we see Tom masking his surprise at this humiliation. At one point he asks directly, "Why do you hurt me, Michael?" For this man, the consummate staff officer, to ask such a thing shows the depth of his pain. At the very end of the film, Michael's desire to wound Tom is explained.
"I intend to squeeze you. I don't like your kind of people," says the brash Senator Geary as he bargains over a corrupt gaming licence. Later, The Family rescues him from a deeply compromising situation and the Senator becomes yet another Corleone bagman, speaking in defence of Michael at the Senate hearings. The sunlit frivolity of the first communion party outside jars nicely with the dark dealings inside the tenebrous house, underlining Michael's remarks to Geary on the subject of hypocrisy.
Pacino is hugely authoritative as Michael, and carries much of the credit for the film's triumphant success, but it has to be said that Robert de Niro is astonishing as Don Vito. He grows in assurance as he ages before our eyes, and combines the human decency and the cold ruthlessness which are both the hallmarks of Vito Corleone. De Niro achieves all of this whilst marvellously and uncannily reproducing the mannerisms of Brando's creation.
Fredo is the weak brother. Lacking Sonny's cheerful brutality and Michael's gravity, he is passed over for the succession. The Rosado brothers manipulate him and make a traitor of him. John Cazale plays him beautifully as the nervy malcontent who feels he should be the Don, but who is given the whorehouse jobs. By the end, Fredo has regressed into a childlike state, fishing with the kids and tearfully grateful for being allowed into Michael's presence.
The Fanucci sequence is terrific. 1917 comes to life for us as a crowded New York street scene transforms into a theatre interior. We see a Neapolitan bel canto performance reproduced faultlessly. This story-within-a-story explains Vito Andolini's rise to prominence with pace and historical imagination. Similarly, Cuba on the eve of the communist takeover is brought vividly to life on the screen. We share Michael's growing sense of unease as the Batista regime unravels, and it becomes clear that Fredo has betrayed The Family. "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer" is Michael's motto, and we see him put this to devastating effect with Fredo and Hymie Roth.
For all Michael's success as a leader, he fails his wife Kay (Diane Keaton) and his private life is barren. Kay has to be protected from The Family's enemies, but to her it feels like a claustrophobic imprisonment. Things have gone badly wrong by the time of Michael's return from Cuba (he has to be briefed on which Christmas present he has 'given' his son). A richly emotional chiaroscuro scene with his mother brings Michael to admit that he has lost Kay's love. She is the loser, becoming inexorably estranged from The Family and from her own children. Michael symbolically obliterates her by closing the door in her face.
In the shifting sands of gangland treachery, it is hard to be sure who has double-crossed whom. Did Roth deceive Michael, or is Michael now hopelessly paranoid? What was the truth behind the bungled whacking of Frankie Five Angels? One reality emerges from the chimera. The Family alone is strong, and it crushes mercilessly those who fall victim to it. Even Don Michael.