The Godfather Part II (review)
Give Me Your Violent, Your Fierce
Rare is the sequel that equals the film that spawned it. The Empire Strikes Back. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Add to that short list The Godfather Part II, the only sequel ever to win Best Picture.
Part II continues the sweeping family epic that ironically juxtaposes quintessential American values with the extremely realistic violence and criminal mentality of mobsters. The Godfather Part II, even more so than its predecessor, tells a story of immigrants in America that -- minus the felonies and murders -- many of us might recognize as tales our grandparents told.
The film opens as nine-year-old Vito Andolini, orphaned by a family feud back in Italy, arrives alone in America in 1901. He gazes at the Statue of Liberty as his ship enters New York harbor and navigates the confusion of Ellis Island -- where he is renamed Vito Corleone (for his home village) -- on his own. Cut to his son, Michael (Al Pacino, just as brilliant as the first time around), presiding over the family from its base in Lake Tahoe, 1958. Michael has a powerful U.S. senator in his pocket and is looking to expand the family business, perhaps into prerevolutionary Cuba, perhaps in a merger with Jewish gangster Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg). The mob may be "bigger than U.S. Steel," according to Roth, but things are starting to fall apart for the Corleones. The Godfather Part II interweaves these two stories: Vito as a young man (an incredible Robert DeNiro) building his underworld empire in the Italian ghettos of New York City, post WWI, and his son Michael desperately trying to keep it together, 40 years later.
The open society that drew people from all over the world to America also allows crime to flourish, especially when the criminals are as enterprising and entrepreneurial as the Corleones, who demonstrate just the kind of sturdy self-reliance our country was built on. Okay, so they take it a little too far. But their story is pretty much the story of America in the 20th century.
Best Picture 1974
AFI 100: #32
unforgettable movie moment:
Vito, having returned to Italy for a visit as a young man, calls upon the don who killed his entire family.
[reader comments on this review]
previous Best Picture:
1973: The Sting
next Best Picture:
1975: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
previous AFI 100 film:
31: Annie Hall
next AFI 100 film:
33: High Noon
viewed at home on a small screen
rated R
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