Film Review : THE GODFATHER * * * *

Submitted by jblack on Thu, 03/15/2001 - 04:09
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The Godfather(1972)
CAST Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, John Cazale

DIRECTOR Francis Ford Coppola

Francis Coppola's "The Godfather" is the beginning and ending of mafia cinema. Its not the only wonderful film about organized crime, but its the richest and most grand. It looks inside the family of a crime organization so deeply, that we dont think of them as bad guys per say. There is no scenes of prostitution where women are being degraded. No ones lives being ruined by drugs or gambling. We see detailed relationships inside the closely knit structure of a crime family.

Marlon Brando is Vito Corleone. A soft spoken man whos words are regarded as commandment. A very feared man with much power. In the opening sequence, an undertaker is asking for revenge against the men who raped and beat his daughter. The godfather tells him if we would have come and asked in friendship, than the scum who hurt his daughter would be suffering this very day. We sense his manipulation in this scene. His power to suck someone in under his thumb, oweing to him.

Brando's character is the heart and soul of the Corleone family, but not of the film, really. That is Michael, played by Al Pacino. The story is a study of a mans transformation from good to evil. During the wedding sequence at the first of the movie, Michael tells Kay Adams(Keaton) that that is his family, it's not him. And by the ending of the movie he is lying to his sister about the death of her husband, and people are kissing his hand calling him godfather. All points in between craft his dissention into the top spot of the family with a smooth flow.

Coppola makes all the characters alive and he details their personalities so well that we feel we know each and every key member of the film. Its rich storytelling of the internal operation of a crime family that is close, but not close enough. We are given insight to the problems in the family and the mistrust (Michael doesnt even trust Tom Hagen with certain issues). The moral of the story is told by Michael in one line, "never take sides against the family". And he means it.