The Godfather: Part II (1974) - film review

Sicily, 1901.  When Antonio Andolini is killed by Mafia chief Don Ciccio, his wife pleads with the latter to spare her only remaining son Vito.  The gangster shows no mercy and has the woman killed when she attacks him.  The boy Vito narrowly escapes death and sets out to begin a new life in New York, adopting the name Corleone.  Two decades on, Vito is married and has started a family of his own.  In the immigrant ghetto where he lives, Don Fanucci runs a protection racket and extorts payment from Vito and his friends.  Having taken the initiative to assassinate Don Fanucci, Vito becomes a popular character and gradually builds up a prosperous import business.   In 1958, Vito’s favourite son Michael has a tight grip on the Corleone empire and has ambitious plans for its future.   But his attempts to acquire a casino in Las Vegas are threatened by a crooked senator and rival gangster Hyman Roth.  When an attempt is made on his life, Michael is convinced that someone close to him has betrayed him and resolves to find out who.  To get to the truth, he must play along with Roth, aware that he is a dangerous and powerful adversary.  Sure enough, Michael learns the identity of the man who betrayed him - his own brother Fredo.  Just as his wife turns against him and old allies prove to be unreliable, Michael finds himself under investigation by a Senate committee for alleged complicity in gangland activity.  Threatened on all sides, Michael refuses to buckle under, but goes on fighting with an iron resolve, not yet realising that everything he once valued is slowly slipping from his grasp...

The Godfather Part II is that rarest of phenomenon in cinema, a sequel that is better than the original film.  Not only is its scope considerably wider than that of the first Godfather film, it also explores the psychology of its main protagonists in much greater depth and is a far more complex and rewarding piece of cinema.  The bulk of the film is preoccupied with Michael Corleone (again superbly played by Al Pacino), now securely ensconced as the head of his father’s gangster empire.  Times are changing and Michael finds himself up against some formidable challenges which threaten to bring him down.  In his determination to hold his empire together, he slowly surrenders his last vestiges of humanity and fails to uphold his father’s creed about the importance of the family.  Instead, he puts a little too much credence in that other piece of paternal advice: keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.  The more ruthless Michael becomes in dealing with his enemies, the faster he brings about his own downfall, and so he ends up isolated and dehumanised - a cruel mockery of the man he once imagined he would become.  We are reminded of another old saying.  Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. 

Michael Corleone’s tragic decline is effectively contrasted against his father’s rise from humble origins.  The two stories are ingeniously interwoven so that when we cross from one to the other a striking parallel is immediately drawn.   It is as if Michael and Vito Corelone are being fated by gods of opposing temperaments, the former compelled to surrender all the chips that his father was able to win in the casino of life.   The contrast in the two men’s parallel destines is emphasised by the starkly differing cinematographic style which is skilfully employed by Coppola.  Whereas Vito’s story is predominately told in sun-drenched settings that reflect the warmth and vitality of the protagonist, Michael’s is characterised by a dull palate which becomes increasingly darker and moodier as the character’s human qualities ebb away.  It is like watching a seesaw - as Vito rises higher and higher into the sunlight, his son sinks deeper and deeper into the shadows.  As one empire rises, another must fall.

Director Francis Ford Coppola shows no sign of being daunted by the enormity of this production and confidently delivers what is probably his finest  film, aided and abetted by co-screenwriter Mario Puzo (author of The Godfather novel).  The Godfather Part II has the lavish, epic quality of the first film but is much richer, both in terms of the story it has to tell and also the variety of techniques that Coppola and his team employ to make the narrative interesting and convincing.  There are of course the dramatic set-pieces of the kind for which Coppola is renowned (the best being the slightly tongue-in-cheek assassination of a greedy protection racketeer), but what makes the film particularly powerful are the more restrained character-centric sequences, which slice into Michael Corleone’s flawed psychology like an over-zealous pathologist performing an autopsy. 

Al Pacino’s portrayal of Michael is both chilling (in its depiction of a man being overtaken by his ambitions to the exclusion of all else) and devastatingly poignant, particularly as we are never allowed to forget where he started out.  It is testament to Pacino’s acting skill that the brooding monster he ends up as at the end of The Godfather Part II is virtually unrecognisable as the likeable young man we encountered at the start of The Godfather.   Pacino’s is not the only great performance the film has to offer.  As the young Vito Corleone (the character played by Marlon Brando in the original film), Robert De Niro proves to be every bit as charismatic and turns in a sympathetic performance that is a perfect contrast to Pacino’s, and just as nuanced and compelling.  The supporting contributions from such talented performers as Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton and John Cazale should not be overlooked as these add greatly to the film’s authenticity, intensity and charm.

Although initially The Godfather Part II was far less well-received by the critics than its predecessor, it proved to be an international box office hit and subsequently acquired widespread critical acclaim.  The film was nominated for 11 Oscars and won awards in six categories, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (De Niro) and Best Adapted Screenplay.  In 1977, Coppola edited together the two Godfather films, adding footage which had been omitted from these films, into a four-part television series entitled The Godfather Saga.  Coppola completed the Godfather trilogy with The Godfather Part III (1990), a film which continues to divide critical opinion but which may, in the fullness of time, come to be as well-regarded as the two epic masterpieces that preceded it.   As a study in the corrupting and dehumanising influence of power, The Godfather Part II is virtually unsurpassed and resoundingly deserves its reputation as one of cinema’s landmark achievements.

© Steve Chandler 2011

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