 ""When they come . . . they come at what you love."" | 2009-09-15 |
| - Reviewed By orbmagnet |
The Godfather Part III suffers from the marvels of the first two films. Brando, De Niro, Caan, Duvall, and many other stars are absent. The Mafia is no longer the central part of this story. And it's actually hard to understand this film without watching the first two films. But does that mean it fails to be a movie overall? Of course, not.
Despite being the weakest in the trilogy, The Godfather Part III makes for a powerful conclusion to this epic saga. It's now 1979, and Michael Corleone is diagnosed with diabetes. He's separated from his wife, and his children are estranged. For years, Michael has felt guilt from not only isolating himself from his own family, but also having his brother Fredo killed. Now, he wants to go perfectly legitimate with his risky business. As you can see, this has now become a tale of redemption and forgiveness.
Francis Ford Coppola does what he does best here. He moves the story along, with some interesting and powerful elements that have not been found in the first two films. The script is still brilliant the third time around; I don't think you can improve anything here. The music sounds reused, but they still become an important aspect in every scene that requires it.
Of course, we cannot forget the cast (whether good or bad). Al Pacino is as amazing as ever. He's still superior in the first two films, but here, we get to see more emotion and more skill. The last two scenes are especially powerful; it still gets me a bit teary-eyed. Diane Keaton is still spectacular as Kay; same goes for Talia Shire as Connie. Andy Garcia becomes a welcome addition in the cast. He's perfect as the late Sonny's son, Vincent. It's very amusing to see Joe Mantegna as Joey Zasa . . . especially if you try hard not to envision him as Fat Tony. Donal Donnelly as the Archbishop can be best described as extraordinary: he's believable alright. B.J. Harrison as the Corleones' new adviser isn't really as great as Robert Duvall in the first two films, but he can still manage to make us appreciate his performance. Finally, we come to Sofia Coppola as Mary. Countless people find her dull and wooden, easily the worst performance in the entire trilogy. While I do find her wooden, she really makes it more authentic. She is oblivious to what's going on in her father's business; she's more of a simpleton rather than an expert in the Mafia business. And I think Sofia pretty much fits that personality here.
It's true that The Godfather Part III is not in the same league as the first two classic installments, but this is still a fitting conclusion, and it is an extraordinary movie. Just make sure you've seen Godfather I and II before you see this one.
Grade: A- |
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| "Objectively speaking" | 2009-06-04 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1JS02TB4AU8AI |
Here is my review friends.
Academy Award Nominations for Godfather 3:
Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Best Art Direction-Set Decoration
Best Cinematography
Best Director
Best Film Editing
Best Music
Best Picture (Yes it WAS nominated for Best Picture:-)
Additional award
Best Director: Francis Ford Coppola
1990 Hollywood Foreign Press Association
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 "Only suffers in comparison to the first two films" | 2009-04-20 |
| - Reviewed By boatdoc@hotmail.com |
Some reviews can't blast this film enough:
"There's no sugarcoating the magnitude of the cinematic disaster that "Part III" represents."
"Let's all hope that there will be no Part IV."
I think a bandwagon of bashing gathered momentum, and for those who like to look for chinks in the armor, this film seemed the opportunity to throw stones. I say wait and see: in years to come history will mark part III as a fitting conclusion to the Corleone saga. No, it is not a masterpiece of the stature of the first two Coppola classics, but dear friends, I'd argue neither were "Casino" or "Goodfellas" or "Once Upon a Time in America", and although those mafia-themed films are all highly acclaimed, none of them reach the heights of the first two Godfather films, and that shouldn't be held against them. Neither should it be held against GF III.
Francis Coppola and Mario Puzo returned to the characters they know better than anyone, and fashioned a tale that dovetails believably into the Corleone history of the first two films.
Al Pacino returns as Don Michael Corleone. Michael has the strength and cunning of his father, Vito, and an almost superhuman ability to foresee future events. But where the great Vito Corleone also had a keen devotion to family and compassion for his fellow man, Michael has a cold ruthlessness that allows him to order the murder of family members.
Michael is a tragic character. In the opening of the first film (and we are told in Puzo's original novel) Michael is something of a disappointment to his father and family exactly because he does not want to join the family business. He enlists in the Marines after Pearl Harbor, even though his father has pulled strings to keep him out of the military. He's planning a career as a teacher, married to his college sweetheart, but even the enemies of the family know that Michael is an outsider in the family business.
The attempted murder of his father pulls Michael quickly into the inner circle. Circumstances outside his control compel him to become exactly the person he does not want to be.
In an early scene in part II wife Kay (wonderfully played by Diane Keaton in all the films) reminds Michael that seven years earlier he had promised her that the family would be "completely legitimate" within five years.
Part III opens with Michael receiving a high Catholic honor, bestowed on behalf of the Pope himself. The Church is in trouble. (Based on the real-life papal banking scandal of the early `80s.) Michael is willing to give Archbishop Gilday, the Vatican banker, 600 million in exchange for control of Immobiliare, the largest real estate and construction company in Italy. When the Archbishop tells Michael that it will be difficult to get the Vatican to approve this deal, Michael says that the family has completely given up all illegitimate businesses. This storyline drives the rest of the film.
The Corleones have sold their Vegas hotels and casinos and the other families, used to wetting their beaks in the Corleone fountain, feel left behind as Michael tries to move his family completely away from organized crime.
Talia Shire returns again as Michael's sister, Connie, and her role is amplified as counselor as well. Women are marginalized and completely outside the family business in the earlier films. Connie is also a mentor and proponent for the next up-and-coming Corleone, Sonny's illegitimate son Vincent, played with intelligence and menace by Andy Garcia in perhaps his first major screen role. (Coppola seems to have a particular genius for finding and using acting giants before they are well known. Pacino, Keaton, Robert Deniro, Robert Duvall and John Cazale were all relatively unknown before appearing in the first films.)
Much has been made of daughter Sofia Coppola playing Michael's daughter Mary. The truth is, she has the look, but the romance between Mary and Vincent seems more awkward than passionate, and since Vincent is smart and ambitious, it doesn't make much sense that he would pursue Mary for any reason other than passion since Michael discourages their pairing. Naysayers can't help but mention that Winona Ryder dropped out of this part at the last minute. (To make Edward Scissorhands.) I can't help but be reminded of the critical thrashing Angelica Huston took for playing the lead in an early film of her famous father, prior to an acting career that resulted in an Academy Award. Hopefully Ms. Coppola takes some satisfaction that her career progressed to Oscar nominations as a director herself. In short - she is not so bad that she ruins this film.
Robert Duvall is missed as Tom Hagen, and George Harrison is bland as new family attorney B.J. Harrison.
The business subplot runs parallel with the plot of the torment of Michael. As he grows older, and makes more attempts to get out of crime, he nonetheless sees death and tragedy in his wake. He wants to make amends. He wants to leave a legacy for his children and to reconcile with Kay, and some of the strongest scenes in the film are when he seems to be succeeding, if only a little. At one point he consults a priest he thinks will have insight into the Immobiliare deal. This wise priest feels that Michael has a need for confession. Startled, Michael admits he hasn't confessed in thirty years. The priest coaxes Michael because "it's never too late", and the work of the two actors in this scene is exceptional.
There is a format to the three films: all begin with a large ensemble celebratory scene which includes a few private moments to set the story in motion. All end with a montage of murder as Corleone enemies are eliminated. There is a style and elegance and richness in The Godfather films that exists in this one as well.
The first two movies won "Best Picture". The last of "The Lord of the Rings" films did the same, but I don't recall vitriol being spread on the LOTR films that did not. The Godfather part III should be enjoyed not for what it is not, but for what it is.
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| "The Godfather Part III DVD" | 2009-04-02 |
| - Reviewed By User: ABARBP8GIN7VV |
| The DVD was in great condition, although I was greatly disappointed with the movie itself. |
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| "A Must See, A Must Have..." | 2009-03-25 |
| - Reviewed By shalladeguzman |
If you saw The Godfather Part II - The Coppola Restoration and The Godfather - The Coppola Restoration, you have to see this Godfather III.
I was reading some of the reviews and some didn't feel this lived up to I and II. What helps me like this movie is the fact that I watched them one after the other and didn't wait almost 2 decades to watch this third installment. So, no expectations, I watched it and loved it.
I do understand about the Sophia Coppola's character though, not meeting expectations. If her character was more likeable, more sympathetic (she seemed like a rich, spoiled kid who enjoyed seducing relatives and having sex with her cousin in her parent's house while her father's only a few doors down the hallway!) the ending could have been more powerful. |
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| "A Very Underrated Film, Stellar Moments, Some Pitfalls, but Very Good" | 2009-03-24 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3RDOWCVJ6UZTW |
What works for me in this film...
1. Pacino's convincing characterization of an aging Michael Corleone, his self evaluations/realizations/rebukes, the emotional confession in Rome, his reactions to the continuing violence. The change in his personality and demeanor towards Kaye, less righteous, a little more reflective and doubting...his is the strongest delivery in this film, most convincing and Pacino is always good to watch on film.
2. The presence of time. One of the things I think a lot of people overlook is how well this film looked. It was not cheapened, glossed over.
If it was to have come out in 1977 or 1990 you really couldn't tell.
They did a good job of blending age, history, lighting and time
so the films transition nicely together.
Excellent job on costume, makeup, production. I would say Garcia and the other hoods were the only one's that seemed out of place visually and it messes with that over all look and feel. Italy was beautiful again, cinemaphotography was accurate, warm, inviting, just as in the first film.
3. Sophia Coppola...all right, in my opinion because I am a guy, she looks amazing in this film. Her hair, her lips, her eyes and face,
she's beautiful..about the acting? As real as it gets for the part she played. Is she any different than any other bad actor of a ignorant, clueless, innocent, teenage gal, sister/cousin/relative you had in your family? No. She fits because her own glass house inside that of the biggest crime family in the world seems so much on the brink of colapse and you can see it in her face...that my friends is something you can't teach an actor..I believed she didn't fit the Corleone mantra, believed she didn't know what was going on as she was coming of age..she was like bambi in a forest of wolves, and she represents that sort of ignorant/bliss that Michael Corleone could never get to and in the end she perishes, you never saw it coming...it was brilliant to cast her
cause she didn't fit. And having been around some wealthy families, there are sometimes those children who seem to not characterize the ambitions of the mother and father..hapless but lovely creatures inside these houses of greed, ambition, power.
4. The best part of the film and not talked about all that much; That opera piece to finish out the story was amazing.
As all the rest of the story develops behind the scenes,
as Michael's life is threatened by a sniper, as Connie watches her uncle perish from eating canoli she doped, as priests are shot, a european syndicate boss murdered, a pope dies, you are on the edge of your seat
watching a visual so complex on stage that it almost prepares you for the conclusion of the film, as Michael Corleone watches his daughter die before his very own eyes. How could you not be moved?
I am sorry for those who consider this film to be weak, but that
15+ minutes or so fits into probably some of the best moments of film ever I've seen.
Problems:
1. Wish Kay had more prominent role in the film. Her lines were weak.
2. Andy Garcia as the last Don. He's a good actor, but there is nothing more wrong with this film than to see him as the Don at the end. For some reason, it just did not work. However, it did complete that image of a dying family and Michael's continuing inept decision making, which may be why it was done in this way. The bastard child of the Don's brother Sonny comes to claim the power willingly, but there just is no depth to that character and he just comes off as a punk..even Sonny wrestled with his temper, and it's that internal struggle that gives the impression of strength...not attitude without recourse...Garcia's character seems more fitting into the modern day idea of a gang more than this "family" we've been watching for decades. For Michael, wanting to go legit all this time, it might have been a more compelling story to have had Garcia killed in the same way he killed his brother to stop this "Sicillian thing" Kaye spoke of. To give the power over to his nephew did not seem natural, based on watching him struggle with it through Godfather II and almost all of Godfather III, and in godfather I where Brando's Don showed every sign of a breaking heart when he heard Michael had got involved in the family business...
I rate the choice here for Coppola/Puzo to do this as worth a chip of one complete star out of 5.
Michael's absolution would have best been played out by him turning against that which he'd created finally. Realizing that there is no real way out unless you turn it off completely..While maybe this character of Michael wasn't able to, like so many other mortal men of power, what a grand Shakespearean conclusion it would have been, after seeing his daughter killed on the steps for him to reclaim power of the Don, clean house by ending any blood line (sacrificing his own nephew) give all his money and personal ambitions up and away and spend his last days in Italy with Kay at his side and with maybe less guilty feelings. Of course, then the murder of Michael Corleone by vengeful souls at the end of my version of the film would have had him finally dying in absolution, and for having finally gotten it right this time. I think then you can leave off Godfather III having had enough.
3. Like to have seen more info about what happened to Tom, or flashbacks
to Godfather I....nothing emphasizes the death of a family more than rememberances of the family when it was strong and together..
It is worth watching and hopefully this helps you...
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