A Good End not a Perfect End to the Great American Saga

Rating: 8/10 (10 March 2010)

For years, people have bashed this film without really understanding it. After watching all three the last few days, this is the logical end to the Michael Carleno story. A lot of the problems with this film have more to do with Paramount playing hard ball on a film they knew would save their year. Why you don't pay Robert Duvall $5 million is beyond stupid. Even with Godfather III being a financial and critical hit, Paramount still had a shake-up not long after that.
People bang on Coppola for casting his daughter in the film. He did cast his sister to play Connie and she turned pretty good. The real problem with the role is how naive the daughter is and no actress was going to be able to salvage the same criticism people had about Kay in the first two films. Expect in Godfather I, Michael told her everything early on what the family business was all about. I think she realized it by the end of the first Godfather that Michael wasn't joking. I guess if the character was more like Michael, it could work, but Connie already filled that part in the film. Knowing the cousins thing was based on Coppola's grandparents lessens the yuck factor, but not by much. It would have been better for Anthony not Vincent to take over and maybe screw some distance cousin by marriage. The reality is the movie needed a love story and a way for Michael to pay for his crimes at the end and this was it.
If anything, the movie does a good job of exploring the many corruptions of the Vatican during this time and giving its own account of what happened to Pope John Paul the First. Coppola can still move the pieces on the chessboard better then anyone else in the game. The other plus is Pacino as Michael. I wish we would have seen more actions that lead to him being wanting redemption and a lot calmer then in part II. Yet, it doesn't take away from him once again owning this role and putting a final dramatic end to one of the greatest villains in cinema. Keaton is again awesome as Kay and the best scenes maybe between her and Pacino. They bring their A games all the time in their scenes and makes you want to see more of them.
All in all, its not the perfect end to the saga, but its still good. Of course, like the Star Wars prequels it suffers from fanboy interpretations of what they wanted and not the reality of how films get made or where the story needs to go. I wouldn't mind seeing a fourth film since Coppola hinted that that Micheal's death is such an long time later then Mary's death, he could be inserted at any time. Still, it might be better to end it here and another crap sequel that Paramount would make without Coppola or the original cast.