Fine Acting Performances, World Class Production

Rating: 10/10 (2 July 2005)

I watched the Godfather series in its entirety in the last 3 days, and I found all three productions well done. Godfather I showcases Marlon Brando's unique talents, as well as Al Pacino's emotional intensity. It is this intensity, I feel, that carries Pacino through all 3 phases of the Godfather trilogy.
Godfather II, which also features a young Robert DeNiro as the Godfather, is most unusual through its use of flashbacks of young Don Corleone in Sicily and Manhattan's Little Italy. The outstanding performance DeNiro gives enables the production to work itself into the modern era. And as Pacino ages as the Don's son Michael, we learn from both Corleones the meaning of betrayal from within in all 3 parts of the trilogy. Microcosm of life, one might put it, and the elements of greed and deceit, figure most prominently.
The third part of the trilogy ends as Michael Corleone lives through triumph and tragedy at the highest levels of his own family and the Vatican-of interest due do the great publicity the Vatican has had in recent months due to the changes in pope.
Incidentally, I found the girl who played Appolonia in Godfather I, as well as Sofia Coppola as Mary Corleone is Godfather III, both strikingly beautiful and quite charming in their portrayals of ordinary good Italian girls. In contrast to other reviews, I was quite charmed with young Sofia,and feel she still has promise as a world class actress rather than moving into movie director (like her father).
Winona Rider, who Sofia replaced, was not appropriate for this role. As Sofia was just plain ordinary, so much the better, so it doesn't distract from the focus and tempo of the production. Bridget Fonda is cast out of character in a brief cameo-she gets away with it only because she doesn't reappear.
As Pacino falls over in his chair and dies in Sicily as an old man as Godfather III ends, the potential for rising the last Don's opera-singing son for a Godfather IV remains. Like sequeling Scarface, it's just a movie subject of eternal interest worth money.
Francis Coppola is a fine director but will forever be known for the three Godfather movies-not necessarily for his best works. That's life.