A Made-For-TV-like Grade B sequel, redeemed by a sublime ending

Rating: 4/10 (4 January 2006)

Well, I've read a lot of comments reacting to the initial bad reviews, but having watched the film on DVD last night I think I need to turn the tide back again. Right up until the end, the whole film plays out like some awful made-for-TV sequel, or even worse the pilot film for a new TV series "based on the characters in The Godfather". If you look closely you can even tell where the commercials will be! The acting is either wooden (not just Sofia Coppola, who had the unenviable task of filling in for Winona Ryder at the last minute, but even the marvelous Diane Keaton, who makes her single set-piece speech about how she is so frightened of Michael that it clouds her still-surviving love for him, then repeats it about ten times during the film) or alternatively entirely over the top (Andy Garcia), the same point is bludgeoned into the viewer over and over again (the "legitimate" business world is even more ruthless and dishonest than the Mob), and some of the plot lines are simply ludicrous (Andy Garcia, who has grown up in the city, can ride a police horse like a champion, and by the single act of killing a rival mobster and penetrating a rival gang has somehow metamorphosed from a street punk into a successor worthy of inheriting the mantle of Don Corleone).
And yet...and yet...the entire film is almost redeemed by the last five minutes or so and by a single actor. Al Pacino's silent scream on the steps of the opera house, and even more the final single minute of footage of him as a tired old man struggling to put his glasses on as he reminisces over his past life, then crumpling into death as he strokes one of the dogs who are probably his last compassionate companions on Earth : the film suddenly fast-forwards from the utterly ridiculous to the superbly sublime, triggering a groundswell of emotions. Pacino's performance at the end almost, just almost, saves the rest of the film.