About as necessary as diarrhea

Rating: 3/10 (2 January 2005)

And, finally, old, old Michael Corleone falls over and goes 'THUMP!' Who REALLY did the writing for this last installment of the Godfather saga? Probably the same staff who does "As the World Turns." This flick doesn't deserve the title "Godfather" at all. Let's call this one "The Cosas of Our Nostras" or "All My Capos". As someone who's encountered a number of Mafia people in my business life, I can say without exception, that I've never met any mobster as inwardly-conflicted and contemplative as Michael Corleone. Let's face it, these guys are in the Mafia solely because they're greedy, nothing more. In this film, Don Corleone spends lots of time pondering his past deeds and his bleak future, perhaps even the Afterlife, then recovers remarkably fast in order to pull off some fantastic business deal or order the death of this one or that one like the big time operator he is, deep down. Then, there's his failed marriage. After the break-up scenes in G2, we may hope that Michael & Kay will reunite as man and wife, but here they seem to just become very good, platonic friends who can laugh & cry & share intimate thoughts about their lives. It's as if the screenwriters try to make Michael into a woman. It's bizarre behavior for two people who shared the passion of the marriage bed for 9 years. There's some miscasting here and there, or perhaps they're sins of authorship. Poor, old-country-beautiful Sophia Coppola is saddled with a hopeless role, with too many short lines in the film that don't fit what a young woman would say in casual conversations - was given "remarks" rather than "lines" to emote. Her 'passionate' lovemaking scene with Andy Garcia looks like something from a bad teen sex comedy as they chew their open-mouthed kisses and fondle each others backsides on the kitchen drainboard like marionettes...scullery sex was brought off wonderfully by Glenn Close and Michael Douglas, but it's just laughable here. Then, there's Andy's character, Vinnie Mancini, who's also given a difficult & thankless role to play. He's expected, I guess, to be the new, new Don Corleone, but he's almost handed the job on a silver platter and has to do little to strengthen his position, unlike Michael's simultaneous hits on all 5 Families in G1. This hand-me-down process may be an authentic way of transferring power in a Mafia Family, but why is so much made of this boring routine? Certainly, Don Vincent may earn the respect of his fellow gangsters someday, but there's little character revelations in the script to give us a portrait of this young man, sadly. Puzo did such a fine job of quickly & concisely developing Michael's character in G1. But, G3 has no economy in it's story-telling and we suffer through drawn out expositories until we just want to take a snooze. Thirdly, George Hamilton was also handed a thankless task, in taking over as family lawyer after Robt Duvall reportedly turned down a 3rd installment as Tom Hagen. George wisely underplayed his role, so it came off without damage to the actor. The development of Connie Corleone's character is interesting, but it goes too far when she takes murderous matters into her own hands (she could well end up sleeping with the Fredos, if this were the real world). But, it's not all bad. The assassination scene in the hotel penthouse is nifty! Also, "they keep pulling me back in" or words to that effect is a great line. And, we recover some old-country feel as we get to go back to Sicily, even if it's all done in 1989 and they've got modern cars & haircuts. The plot lines involving the corrupt hierarchy of the Catholic Church are pretty interesting, since it's based on some actual financial shenanigans at Banco Vaticani in the 1980's, but it's brought too far, again, with the too-spectacular death scenes, etc. The Grand Opera scenes are very dramatic and well photographed. But, the death scene of Mary toward the end is an unbalanced attempt of emotional-manipulation, at best. All screenwriters need to learn that we don't always need more and more death in order to bring a mafia movie to a successful conclusion. You feel sorry for Kay that her daughter is dead, she plays her grief so well, but Michael's reaction is hammy, hammy, hammy. Then, Michael dies sometime in the 21st Century, in Sicily, alone on a grand estate, of heart-failure...no grandson to play with before his demise, no wife to grieve for him. What SHOULD have happened in the last 1/2 of this movie is Michael being tracked down by someone like Rudy Guilliani, put on trial, all his dirty family's sleazy little enterprises and bloodthirsty indulgences brought into the light of day, Michael then convicted under RICO statutes and sent to Federal Prison for life...then he can keel over dead from heart-failure while mopping a floor IN LEAVENWORTH. That's how mafia dons were ending their careers in the late 80's and early 90's and they got much better treatment than what they deserved.