IMDB Top 250: Day 7 - #3: The Godfather, Part 2
Image taken from Imp Awards.
The Godfather, Part II is pretty much exactly what it says it is; the second part of The Godfather story as told by Francis Ford Copella. It's the continuation of the story of Michael Carleone as well as a kind of prequel by showcasing he rise of his father Vito. The stories run concurrently throughout the film, so to help facilitate the summary, Vito's story will be in bold while Michael's will just be text. Because if I don't include this every time the mob will kill me: SPOILER ALERT.
Image taken from The Beat Patrol.
The film begins in 1901, where a 10-11 year old Vito Andolini is with his mother at his father's funeral, who was killed by the local Don (Giuseppe Sillato) in Carleone, Sicily. While seeking revenge on the Don, Vito's older brother Paolo is also killed. Vito's mother then pleads with the Don to spare Vito, but he refuses and the mother tries to kill the Don, urging Vito to run away. Vito finds himself on a ship to America with the aid of some of the townspeople and arrives at Ellis Island, where he is quarantined for smallpox and christened Vito Carleone by an immigration officer.
Michael Carleone (Al Pacino) deals with the family business during the celebration of his son Anthony's (James Gounaris) first communion at his compound in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Fredo (John Cazale) is having trouble keeping his wife under control...and you know what, I just don't care anymore.
Not about doing these write-ups, I actually do like doing them, but UGH, this has just taken far too long for me to actually care anymore. I saw this film almost immediately after I watched the first one, which was about a month ago, and guess what: I did not like this movie as much as the original Godfather, and that's mainly because I just don't care about Michael in this movie. At all. In the original movie it was interesting to see Michael go from war hero to a mob boss pretty much out of family obligation. I don't think he wanted too and that's what leads to his intense paranoia in this movie. But here, that's his only character trait and it gets real old, real fast. And let's be honest, Michael just does not have the flair of his father when it comes to retaliation. Vito put a man's favorite horse's head in his bed to get him to go along with him. Michael just flat out kills anyone in his way and it is SOOOO boring. Every time that Al Pacino was on-screen I just wanted the scene to end so that we could go and watch Robert De Niro as Vito Carleone rise from humble beginnings to one of the heads of the five New York families. That, to me, was a more interesting story as it told you what kind of man Vito Carleone really was: a man with honor and integrity who did everything for his family, even if it meant getting his hands dirty.
Now don't get me wrong, I liked this movie well enough. I just don't think of it as some masterpiece of film making. The flashbacks really detract from the rest of the movie and Robert De Niro is just so good at being likable despite what his character is doing that you just can't help but enjoy it. I mean, he won Best Supporting Actor at the Academy in 1974 for this and it really shows. I just wish that Michael was a more interesting character to me.