By far the best: how to be good in the mafia

Rating: 10/10 (9 January 2007)

The third part is nearly the most interesting because we finally have these Corleones in the modern world. They have sold their casinos and gambling institutions, they have never been in drugs or prostitution and the new Godfather, Michael Corleone, wants to get respectable, recognized by the catholic church and world influential. So he tries to donate big quantities of money to the Vatican bank in exchange of a majority share in the Vatican's real estate institution. He fails at first but goes on and tries to find the invisible ways into the labyrinth. So he makes friends with as many people as possible in the financial, religious and political circles around the church. He finds out he has to go to Sicilia to get in touch with an important cardinal who is actually elected Pope, but does not last more than a few months. They have special teas that make you sleep very long in the Vatican. But this third part shows a great evolution of the Sicilian-American and Italian-American communities in the US. Violence is becoming less and less easy in the US. They have to respect the law and law-enforcing institutions are too strong and powerful for them to be neglected or under-evaluated. Then there is a shift in that mafia violence. The Corleones going to Sicilia, among other things to take part in the first operatic production of Michael's own son who is an opera tenor, violence catches them up and Sicilia becomes the theatre of what they can't do in the US any more. And once again Michael goes through and is well protected by the men of his nephew who he has just appointed his successor, and also by chance. The final gun directed at him cannot be prevented from firing, though the assassin will be shot back on the spot by the new Don Corleone, but Michael is once again lucky and the bullet does not reach him. For more details rush to the DVD. Thus the third part ends in drama, even melodrama. But it is definitely clearer than the second that is too long and too complex and entangled. We seem though to be living the last powerful years of this family that has to accept the challenge of becoming legal and respectable. In other words the world is changing and the mafia along with it.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne