The Godfather: Part III
Tags: murder, dramatic, cult, flashback, good versus evil, revenge

Plot synopsis:
The movie begins in 1979, with a brief flashback establishing the long and tragic history of criminal activity within, and by, the Corleone family. Much has changed. Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) is now approaching 60 and feels tremendous guilt for indulging in his ruthless ambition many years ago. Although his previous conquests have made him a very rich man, the thoughts of his children, their future, happiness, and his legacy are the only things keeping him going. His adopted brother Tom Hagen is now dead. The Corleone compound at Lake Tahoe is abandoned and in disrepair. Michael and Kay (Diane Keaton) divorced in 1959, and Michael gave her custody of their children, Anthony (Franc D'Ambrosio) and Mary (Sofia Coppola).Michael has returned to New York City, where he is using his enormous wealth and power to restore his dignity and reputation in the eyes of the public. The violent criminal element of the Corleone family has been largely abandoned, ostracized by Michael as well as the public, which no longer romanticizes the gangster lifestyle. Michael has embraced corporate America, which is now more tolerant of Michael's nihilism. He has rebuilt the Corleone interests as a legitimate enterprise using the blood money from his gangster years. The thugs and sociopathic soldiers from Michael's past (Al Neri, Willi Cicci, Calo, etc). have either died, gone into the underground, or have been relegated to the background, serving as bodyguards for Michael and his family. Michael now struggles between repairing his fragile relationships while trying to contain the violent sociopaths that are still a part of his decaying criminal empire. In an attempt to break with the past, Michael creates a charity, the Vito Corleone Foundation, in memory of his father. At a ceremony in St. Patrick's Cathedral, presided over by Archbishop Gilday, Michael is named a Commander of the Order of St. Sebastian. Kay, who has remarried, sits with Michael's children at the ceremony.At the lavish party following the ceremony, Kay and Michael have a somewhat uneasy reunion. Anthony tells his father that he is going to drop out of law school to pursue a career as an opera singer. Kay supports his choice, but Michael disagrees, wishing that his son would finish law school or join the family business. Michael eventually acquiesces to Anthony's wishes. Meanwhile, Vincent Mancini (Andy Garcia), Sonny Corleone's illegitimate son (with Lucy Mancini), shows up at the party. He is embroiled in a feud with Joey Zasa (Joe Mantegna), the Corleone family's mafioso muscle who has been running the Corleone Family's crime businesses in New York for the past 20 years. What remains of the old Corleone criminal empire is now under Zasa's stewardship. However, the Corleone's old neighborhood in New York's Lower East Side is in ruins, and has become lawless.In Michael's study, Vincent and Zasa tell him about their feud. The discussion grows violent, with Vincent accusing Zasa of being an out-of-control monster who mocks Michael behind his back. Michael makes it clear that he is not "a gangster" and that whatever bad blood exists between Vincent and Joey Zasa is none of his business, and must be settled between only them. He asks the two men to make peace with one another. The two men embrace, but Zasa insults Vincent by whispering "bastardo" in his ear. Enraged, Vincent bites off part of Zasa's ear. Zasa is escorted out and Michael scolds Vincent for his violent ways. However, impressed by Vincent's passionate loyalty to protect him, Michael agrees to take his nephew under his wing. The party concludes with a family picture where Michael asks Vincent to join the rest of the family.That night, two men break into Vincent's apartment, after Vincent has spent the night with a female journalist, named Grace Hamilton (Bridget Fonda), whom he picked up at the party. Vincent brutally kills one in order to frighten the other into revealing Zasa as the man who sent them. Vincent then ruthlessly kills the second man.Later, in an attempt to garner respectability and wealth for the Corleone Family through legitimate enterprise, Michael seeks to buy the Vatican's shares in Immobiliare, an international real estate holding company, of which 25% is controlled by the Vatican. With the help of his new lawyer B.J. Harrison (George Hamilton), he negotiates the transfer of $600 million to the Vatican Bank with Archbishop Gilday, who has plunged the Holy See into tremendous debt through his poor management and corrupt dealings. While in Vatican City, Michael learns that several influential parties oppose the deal for many reasons, not the least of which is the extensive criminal history that has tarnished the Corleone name. Because of this and the failing health of Pope Paul VI, ratification of the deal will be far more complicated than he had anticipated.Don Altobello (Eli Wallach), an elderly New York mafia chief, tells Michael that his old New York partners want in on the Immobiliare deal. A meeting is arranged in Atlantic City, and Michael appeases most of the mafiosi with generous payoffs from their casino days. Zasa, however, gets nothing. Furious, he declares that Michael is his enemy, and tells everyone in the room they must choose between him and Michael. Zasa storms out of the meeting. Don Altobello runs after him to try and talk to him about this irrational move. Minutes later, a helicopter hovers above the conference room and sprays a barrage of bullets through the ceiling windows. Almost everyone is killed, but Michael, Vincent, and Michael's long-term bodyguard and caporegime, Al Neri, manage to escape. Back at his apartment in New York, as Michael considers how to respond to this hit, he suffers a diabetic stroke, and is hospitalized. During the diabetic attack, in a near-delirium, Michael screams out the name of his brother, Fredo, whose murder he had ordered some 20 years earlier.Though they are cousins, Vincent and Mary begin a romantic relationship. Unbeknownst to Michael, Vincent, with the urging of his aunt Connie, plots revenge against Joey Zasa. During a street fair similar to that seen in The Godfather Part II, Vincent and his accomplices kill Zasa's bodyguards, and Vincent, disguised as a mounted New York police officer, shortly murders Zasa himself. Michael, still hospitalized, berates Vincent when he finds out, but Vincent insists that he got the go-ahead from Al Neri and from Connie, who has become deeply involved in family affairs. Michael insists that Vincent end his relationship with Mary because Vincent's involvement in the family puts Mary's life in jeopardy. Vincent agrees.The family travels to Sicily. Michael tells Vincent to speak with Don Altobello and, in order to see where the old man's loyalties lie, to intimate to him his intentions of leaving the Corleone family, under the pretense that his affair with Mary still exists, and that his loyalty to Michael has been supplanted by his desire to continue the relationship. Altobello supports the idea of Vincent switching his allegiance, and introduces him to Licio Lucchesi, the man behind the plot to prevent Michael's acquisition of Immobiliare.Michael also has lunch with Kay, and asks forgiveness for his behavior 20 years earlier. He also tells her that he never planned to go into a life of crime. Kay admits that she still loves Michael, and the two make plans to begin a new life together.Michael visits Cardinal Lamberto, a well-intentioned and pious priest, to speak about the Immobiliare deal. Lamberto convinces Michael to make his first confession in thirty years; among other sins, Michael confesses to ordering the killing of his brother Fredo. After confessing Michael breaks down in tears. He is told by Lamberto that it is "just that he should suffer," and that although he could tell Michael to repent, he knows Michael would not. Nevertheless, he absolves Michael of his sins. Touring Sicily with Kay, who has arrived for Anthony's operatic debut, Michael also asks for her forgiveness. As both admit that they still love each other, Michael receives word that Don Tommasino, his Sicilian friend and ally of the Corleone Family for half a century, has been killed (by a famous assassin), signaling that a new round of violence is about to begin. Cardinal Lamberto is elected Pope John Paul I, which means that the Immobiliare deal will likely be ratified, due to his intention to "clean up" the dealings of the Vatican. The new Pope's intentions come as a death knell to the plot against the ratification of the Immobiliare deal, prompting frantic attempts by the plotters to cover their own tracks.Vincent tells Michael what he has learned from Altobello: Lucchesi is behind the plot against the Immobiliare deal, and a master assassin known as Mosca da Montelepre (the man who killed Tommasino), has been hired by Altobello to kill Michael. Vincent wants to strike back, but Michael cautions him, saying that if he goes ahead with such a plan, there'll be no going back. Vincent insists on revenge, and Michael relents. He makes Vincent head of the Corleone family, the new Godfather. In exchange for the promotion, Vincent agrees to put an end to his heated relationship with Mary once and for all.The family travels to Palermo to see Anthony perform the lead in Cavalleria Rusticana at the renowned opera house Teatro Massimo. Meanwhile, Vincent makes plans to seek revenge against the Corleone family's enemies.Interspersed with scenes from Anthony's performance are the brutal murders of the enemies of the Corleone family. Michael Corleone's theme, Halls of Fear, is mainly played during the murders:Keinszig is assaulted by Vincent's men. His body is hanged over the bridge, to make his death an apparent suicide.Archbishop Gilday has the tea of the Pope poisoned. The Pope soon drinks it and dies.At the opera, Don Altobello eats a dish of poisoned cannoli that his goddaughter Connie serves him. He soon dies silently at the opera as Connie watches through her opera glasses.Al Neri shoots Archbishop Gilday as he climbs a spiral staircase and flings the archbishop's body down the stairs.Finally, Corleone 'button man' Calo (Franco Citti) approaches Don Lucchesi and whispers to his ear "Power wears out those who do not have it" before stabbing Lucchesi in the throat with his own pair of glasses, killing him. Immediately, Calo himself is killed by Lucchesi's bodyguards.Mosca, the assassin hired by Don Altobello to kill Michael, descends upon the opera house during Anthony's performance, killing two of Vincent's men who delay his opportunity, and the opera ends before he has the chance to kill Michael with his rifle. The assassin retreats to the opera house facade's staircase, and tries to shoot Michael there. Mary is confronting her father about the forced break-up with Vincent, when two shots ring out. The first hits Michael in the shoulder. The second hits Mary in the chest, and she dies calling out to her father, "Dad?" Vincent then kills the assassin with a single shot, striking him in the chest. As Kay cradles Mary's bloody body in her arms, Michael screams with primal pain and rage.The scene dissolves to a short montage of Michael's memories, the first being a dance with Mary, the second being a dance with his first wife, Apollonia, and the last being a dance with Kay. The film ends in an unspecified year, showing an aged and broken Michael, seated in the front yard of his Sicilian villa. He slowly puts on a pair of sunglasses, drops an orange from his hand, slumps out of his chair, collapses to the ground, and slowly dies, completely alone. A small dog sniffs around his body and the screen fades to black as Mascagni's "Intermezzo" from Cavalleria Rusticana resolves to a high F major chord.

Review: While I never found Diane Keaton's performances in the saga that good, she still fills the spot required, same goes for Talia Shire, whose role in the ending finale of the film really came as a surprise to me - which was a good thing.
Sophie Coppola was OK, like I said a lot of people have complained about her acting skills and I gotta admit she was a little "stiff" or sorts in some scenes but it's not notable all the time and it didn't spoil any moods for me.
I'm telling you this movie is a great ending to the saga even because of that one particular scene so just go see it, despite what a lot of people have said about, badmouthing it for faulty reasons..
Actually, there were some positive things, religious-wise, with Al Pacino's character, who sought forgiveness for his past sins and made a few very profound statements such as, "What good is confession if it isn't followed by repentance?"Anyway, Pacino's acting talents are the main attraction in the lower-key, more cerebral Godfather film.
As with the other two films in the series, it's nicely photographed with a lot of nice brown tints.Finally, director-writer Francis Ford Coppola took a lot of flak for putting his daughter in such an important role but I thought she (Sofia Coppola) was fine and - like this film - unfairly criticized..
Just because it doesn't end with a violent scene like the murder of the heads of the 5 families does not make it a bad movie, but in this case, a beautiful one.
The movie would be a good staging point for a Godfather IV, with "Vincenzo Corleone" and Connie Corleone running things, while developing further the relationship between Michael, and his wife and son..
Being an optimistic fellow I wanted to enjoy The Godfather Part III the first time I saw it - this was easy, since its a competent piece of film making, generally well paced, acted, it's coherent, Al Pacino's in it, Coppola has made this film from A to Z and on its own terms the film doesn't have any inexcusable flaws.
Sure, its not as good as the first two but not many movies are!" Later in life, presumably with heightened standards and a better sense of criticism, I started to suspect that the opposite could be true - that part III was really nowhere near as good as I'd recall - and after seeing all three films pretty much back to back I have to be honest (an approach I think wouldn't hurt the more enthusiastic defenders of this film) and conclude that The Godfather Part III, despite certain qualities, simply doesn't work.(Excluded passage due to word limit; concerning how Coppola did the film for the money, and that it actually makes the film a little easier to appreciate)I think the film really, on a whole, is perhaps not 'bad', certainly not horrible, but definitely a failure.
He's a great actor, and this is as fine a performance as any other he's made, but when you consider how truly versatile Pacino can be (compare Godfather part II with Scarface, with Serpico, Devil's Advocate, you name it, he's right there in character) its a disappointment that the aged Michael Corleone has turned into...
He looked, and acted, too much like Al Pacino.Not to mention Andy Garcia being nothing more than Andy Garcia, Joe Pantanglio, Eli Wallach, Talia Shire in a strangely awful performance (she's not a bad actress at all, but whatever happened here?).
There are instead near-insulting reminders to the audience that the other two movies still exist (like the pointless scene where Michael have kept the drawing Anthony left at his pillow when he was nine or so; "I remember this" he smiles, though I'm not sure if we are to understand this as "I also remember they shot up the bedroom that same night"; once again, it seems Coppola simply forgets his own story).
The attempts Coppola takes on the Vatican are also pretty flat when you think about how Italian cinema has been doing this for half a century.There's no reason to watch this film have you not seen the first two.
Time and public demand will only tell.I liked The Godfather: Part III right up to and including Sofia Coppola's much maligned performance as Mary Corleone daughter of Don Michael Corleone, the one and only Al Pacino.
His surviving sibling Talia Shire thinks he ought to keep a hand in and his illegitimate nephew, Andy Garcia is having a running feud with another family head, Joe Mantegna.Andy Garcia got the only acting nomination for The Godfather: Part III as Sonny's son out of wedlock.
Garcia lost to another hoodlum portrayal, Joe Pesci for Goodfellas for Best Suppporting Actor.Probably Al Pacino has gotten all he could out of the character of Michael Corleone.
But people and circumstances won't let those worlds mix and as he ruefully remarks, "just when I think I'm out, they drag me back in again."Only four characters made it through the three Godfather films, Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, and Richard Bright as Al Neri.
Sofia Coppola has taken a lot of crap for her role in this film (and Francis for casting her), and deserves every bit of it.
I recently watched all three Godfather films again in sequence and was surprised at how bad GF III is when closely compared to the other two fims.
Both of those actresses got into movies via their relative, Francis Ford Coppola, who directed this film.
Despite his absence, George Hamilton did a very nice job as the Corleone's WASP lawyer (an interesting side note: maybe Coppola thought that the final product would be better since Robert Castellano was supposed to be in Part II, but asked for too much money and was written out of the script.
A fascinating tidbit was that Castellano was the highest paid actor in "The Godfather").My apologies to Coppola about the flack he tolerated about his daughter's inclusion in this film and her "performance." But let's be real, Andy Garcia falling for her?
I think the long layoff after Godfather Part II made Coppola's casting skills atrophy a bit, not unlike George Lucas's casting mistakes a few years later in the Star Wars prequels.Even more painful than Soffia's addition was the lousy dialogue, especially between Michael and Kay. Every attempt was made to "hit the home run" and give her the one-line zingers that were quite frankly painfully embarrassing to watch.I think it's a shame because the nucleus of the film--about corruption in the Vatican and the possible murder of a pope was very intriguing and done properly, this could have been a great film.
George Hamilton made the film look like a made-for-TV movie every time he appeared: What was he doing there??
Since only three of the original cast has made it to the last installment, Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, and Talia Shire, the movie banks on audiences caring about all the new faces and plot points.
You wouldn't think it was possible to make a three hour film in which very little happens, but Francis Ford Coppola succeeded with this decidedly average and woeful anti-climax to his Mafia saga.
The performances are good by Talia Shire and Diane Keaton, and great by Al Pacino and Andy Garcia, but Soffia Coppola is amazingly horrible, she should have gone straight to directing.
That character of course is Michael Corleone; and when he's played by an actor of such class as Pacino, the movie can't fail.
IMO, this is a superior film on its own merits, which have nothing to do with the 15yr (I think) gap between sequels.Andy Garcia is a great addition to the cast as the cocksure Vincent, and Sophia Coppola, despite what you may have heard, is fine here too as Mary.She is also very beautiful.The entire trilogy is a series which demands to be seen by all those who call themselves film fans, and the third is not a blight on the other two, but rather a quality addition that enriches far more than it detracts..
If you've read the Puzo's books, or at least have watched very closely the two first movies (specially the first one), you're going to agree with me.Compared with the Corleone's saga presented by Puzo's novel, the script of this film is, sometimes, even ridiculous.
The story ends up reaching nowhere, although it appears to go to some direction during the movie.It is understandable that different times should be expected for the Corleone's saga in the 90's, and that we would not gonna find things the way they were before.
It sounds like those poorly made sequels that just try to copy the original film's qualities.What will never be understandable is the fact that Mario Puzo, Coppola and Al Pacino joined together to make this.
It's derivative in plot outline from the first two films; it has some awful acting stints by Pacino, Sophia Coppola, & Talia Shire, among others; and it insults the Catholic Church by positing as truth the murder of a pope.
When Francis Ford Coppola decided to make "The Godfather II" he told this story in much different way as he did the other two films however this time he failed.
Perhaps you had a point about incest and cousin-relationships – however, I never got them since a) I didn't care, expecting the third part of "Godfather" and not an incestuous soap-opera and b) well, like I said: Sophia's performance made me think about many things – a stacked ham-sandwich was among them but sex wasn't.Here, now I've said it: it wasn't only general miscasting or dour, convoluted and essentially boring story lines that killed the movie beyond hope for resurrection – it was Sophia!
Then came films like "Jack" (best left uncommented) and "Supernova", which you wanted to direct under the moniker 'Alan Smithee' but Walter Hill had already adopted it for the same pile of manure.Francis, I'd like to thank you for all the great movies prior to "Godfather 3" and wish you a long, happy life.
I think that the third part of this series is just as good as the previous two parts, And ANDY GARCIA's character was so interesting that it would make you feel like that he's been acting in this movie since form the very first moment of the 1st part, and I think that Al Pacino's character doesn't need any comment because it was just perfect and he did very well just like the 1st and 2nd part.
16 years after the last of two brilliant godfather-films, director Francis Ford Coppola returns to complete his thus far unfinished mafia saga.
Back in the '70s method-actors like Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro were the true kings of the movie industry, but after a couple of years special effects started playing a bigger role in cinema and fantasy figures such as Indiana Jones, Darth Vader, aliens, terminators, gremlins and horror icon Freddy Krueger all became immensely popular and just as important.Amazing is that "The godfather part III" didn't change one bit amidst this massive update of modern cinema.
Even more compelling is the ending of the godfather-trilogy.But Al Pacino isn't the only great actor in this film.
The change in Connie, from passive to assertive and decisive, was one of the positive features of this movie and Talia Shire is great in that role.The new faces include some pretty big names: Eli Wallach, Joe Mantegna, Andy Garcia, George Hamilton, John Savage, Bridget Fonda.
He was stepping into Robert Duvall's shoes - Tom Hagen was meant to continue into The Godfather III but the character was dropped when Robert Duvall pulled out over a pay dispute - so he does suffer due to the comparison with Duvall.Then we have the performance which almost single-handedly wrecks this movie: Sofia Coppola.
It's the same thing that happened to Oliver Stone and George Lucas.I hate this movie, because it tries to change the way we think about characters from the first two films, because it resorts to weird '90s crap like the helicopter attack, because the ending plays like it was written in 15 minutes and filmed in 20, and because, worst of all, it's boring.So much could have been done with this.
Francis Ford Coppola turned Godfather 1&2 into two of the best movies ever to bad he dident put as much effort into 3.
I should have taken their advice.Pacino should have been forced to watch the original Godfather films 100 times each to remind him what he was like when he was a real actor.
Diane Keaton looks like she just dropped in from her real daughter's PTA meeting (which isn't so terrible considering the role she has in the film) and Talia Shire shows the rust of a woman who really hasn't acted much outside her thankless turns in the later Rocky flicks.This film could have used a fresh idea or two, another couple of passes at the screenplay and whole lot less of the Coppola family.
After watching this film the first time all I could think of was that Francis Ford Coppola waited too long to make it.
However it's still a Godfather film by Francis Ford Coppola and still worth watching..
I mean, there were parts of the movie that were good (and i'm not someone that judges a film based on the action or fight scenes if that's what you're thinking) but godfather 3 really paled in comparison to it's two older brotherskind of ironic how Michael, the youngest son, was the best, yet the third 'brother' of the series was the worst ;p.
Francis Ford Coppola directs this underrated film with family member Sofia putting in a worthy performance as Mary, daughter of Pacino and lover/cousin of Garcia.
The second Godfather wasn't as good but still very entertaining but like after every successful film, the director gets the idea of a sequel and it all goes horribly wrong.
Proboby known as the least recognized or liked of the trilogy, all you have to do is separate it from the first two(which of course are classics) and you will get a lot out of this film,it doesn't have the same feeling or passion of the first two, but it has something else, Andy Garcia gives the performance of his life as Sunny's bastard son, and pacino playing a withering and somewhat matured Michael corlione finally shows that family really is the most important thing and maybe questions some of te decisions he has made in the past thinking he is doing the best thing for his"FAMILY" but really it was just a power trip.
One can only get the impression Francis Ford Coppola wanted to cling to his title as the maker of the most memorable gangster epic of all time by reminding us of it by dealing us The Godfather Part III, which can hold claim to being possibly the most unnecessary and even damaging prequel of all time.Right from the very beginning, it is clear how transparent the film is, as possibly without even realizing it, it is copying the first film by having a long family gathering sequence where Pacino (stepping in for Brando) cuts away to have some behind the scenes discussions right up to the scene where his character is rushed to hospital, again like the original.
Coppola understands this world, or at least the dynamics of it, and that's what makes Godfather 3 at the least a fascinating character study.Not to mention, much of the assembled cast (with the loss of Robert Duvall being the only set-back) is still highly dependable- Pacino is great at being tragic, and his subtleties in some scenes rank with his best work (one scene that stuck with me was his confession to the priest about Fredo).
Far from it of course really.I still see "The Godfather: Part III" as a great movie to end the saga.
She simply is no actress and there should had been no way that she should had been in this movie but her character and her plot line with the Garcia character all play a fairly small part, considering that the story is build up out of many different story lines, which all brilliantly come together in the final sequence."The Godfather: Part III" is well written and it has a great main premise of the Corleone family trying to legitimize their business.
The only reason Sofia Coppola isn't laughed off the screen is because all the other performances here are so broadly awful that she actually comes across as somewhat understated (although her Valley Girl intonations are pretty hopeless).One of the great things about Godfathers I and II was the way they avoided cliches and gave dignity to Italian American characters in a setting that's usually been used to stereotype them, and in fact used them to comment not on mafia corruption but on the corruption of America itself.
The character we were really supposed to care about, Mary, was completely blown by a terrible acting performance by Sofia Coppola, that has to be one of the worst casting calls I've ever seen.
The new characters in this installment are Sonny's illegitimate son Vincent (Andy Garcia), Michael's daughter Mary (Sofia Coppola), lawyer J.B. Harrison (George Hamilton), and some others.
People may bash me for this, but the third and final entry into the well-respected Godfather trilogy is the second best film in the series right behind Part Two. I was really hooked into the movie for the entire running time of 170 minutes.
But it seems like a lot of my favorites get slammed on here.I love "The Godfather" and "The Godfather Part 2," but part 3 is really something to behold...As many times as I've watched this film, I can't get over the fact that Michael Corleone has disappeared.