Undeservedly vilified

Rating: 7/10 (29 June 2006)

"When they come  they'll come at what you love"
How prophetic Michael Corleone (Al Pacino)'s words would prove to be. In Francis Ford Coppola's hugely anticipated follow up to The Godfather: Part II, almost twenty years have passed since the final moments of the previous picture, where Michael ordered the death of his own older brother, Fredo.
It's 1979. Michael Corleone is one step away from fulfilling the promise he made to his estranged ex-wife Kay Adams (Diane Keaton) in the idealism of his youth in The Godfather  if he secures a deal with the Vatican to take majority shareholdings in the international conglomerate Immobliare for a hefty $600 million, the Corleone family will take it's final step into the world of complete legitimacy. The deal requires the Pope himself to approve, however, and forces conspire to prevent exactly that  forces from deep within the corrupt Vatican, and from criminal underworld Michael has been battling for a quarter of a century to escape.
Michael's life as a Mafia chieftain has etched a deep tire into him that is channeled through his body language. He no longer sits cross-legged in a supreme position of power: his shoulders droop, his face is drained. He seeks only for his family to be together again, for forgiveness and redemption  for his whole life spent in devotion to protecting his family to not have gone to waste. He seeks youth to pass on the burden he bears. His daughter, Mary (Sofia Coppola) is naïve and unknowing of who her father is, but loves him deeply. His son Anthony (Franc D'Ambroiso) is more perceptive and is determined to never be involved in his father's business. Michael's nephew, Vincent Mancini (Andy Garcia)  the illegitimate son of his older brother Sonny  is just as hotheaded and volatile as his father was, but is eager to change to work for his uncle.
More than any complex plot, the picture's best moments come with the exchanges between Michael and Vincent, once Michael agrees to take him under his wing at the behest of his hardened younger sister Connie (Talia Shire). Watching Andy Garcia's transformation is remarkable, drawing parallels with Pacino's own in The Godfather, of course, and perhaps Coppola's ability to capture the spirit of Part I, if not Part II with these moments is what saves The Godfather: Part III.
The distinctive elements of a Godfather picture are all present for the third reprisal: from excellent acting bar the already scathingly criticized Sofia Coppola (a dead horse that doesn't need beating), to Willis's cinematography and the famous score, to Coppola's eye for majestic scope in his direction. If anything, Part III is let down by an overly convoluted plot, and the glaring absence of Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen, who brought a personality to the business dealings. Nevertheless, The Godfather: Part III is not a bad picture. It could never hope to be on the same level of the first two (the 16 years between films would only serve to heighten that pedestal), but Part III, with it's climactic Opera sequence that showcases Coppola at his virtuoso best  gut-wrenchingly tragic ending and all  provides an apt finale to the Corleone Saga that has been undeservedly vilified for the shortcomings its older brothers expose.