Easily the runt of the litter

Rating: 4/10 (12 February 2006)

STAR RATING: ***** The Works **** Just Misses the Mark *** That Little Bit In Between ** Lagging Behind * The Pits
It is the late 1970s and Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) is now the aging head of the Corleone empire. All is flowing smoothly until a younger relative of his, Vincent (Andy Garcia) arrives on the scene. Vincent is hot-headed, acting without thinking and Michael can see this as a problem that may affect the Corleone family. Then he decides to buy a major corporation's share in the church, cutting off his ties with the casinos and soforth. This rubs some other prominent gangsters up the wrong way and from here we watch Michael's dramatic fall from power in a devastating event of power games.
In 1990, Martin Scorsese brought us a gangster movie to herald a new era in the shape of Goodfellas that many, both artistically and casually, would want to emulate. One can only get the impression Francis Ford Coppola wanted to cling to his title as the maker of the most memorable gangster epic of all time by reminding us of it by dealing us The Godfather Part III, which can hold claim to being possibly the most unnecessary and even damaging prequel of all time.
Right from the very beginning, it is clear how transparent the film is, as possibly without even realizing it, it is copying the first film by having a long family gathering sequence where Pacino (stepping in for Brando) cuts away to have some behind the scenes discussions right up to the scene where his character is rushed to hospital, again like the original. This may well have been the mark of Coppola's career freefall, starting the chart of a sad decline in a once brilliant director.
You've lost interest in the story long before the ending, leaving it to just ramble on towards it's eventual conclusion. The story's fairly interesting and there is one scene of brilliant emotional acting by Pacino (even with this sort of material, you gotta admire the guy!) but the whole film cannot help but feel like a big, embarrassing dirty stain on the two unforgettable films made two decades earlier. With the flashy, trend-setting new film Goodfellas on the scene, I can't imagine cinema-goers in 1990 would have much time for this unneeded drag. **