3 - The Godfather;
Part 2
The Plot; Michael Corleone is now the Don of New York’s most
powerful gangster family. As is to be expected, being in such a position of
power is not an easy street and it soon becomes clear that Michael is far from
untouchable. Running parallel to the main story is the rise of the original
‘Godfather’, Vito Corleone, as the film depicts his evolution from humble
immigrant to the man we saw in the first film. Meanwhile, Michael’s paranoia
manifests itself in intense anger as he doesn't know whether to trust his own
brother (Fredo), his capo (Frank Pentangeli) or the newest player in the game,
Hyman Roth. Three hours of deception culminates in the coldest acts seen in
cinema, as family ties are truly broken.
Why is it Better? This film and its predecessor have gone down in
the canon of great films, and although the final installment disappoints, the
entire trilogy is magnificent. However, this episode just scrapes above the
original for a number of reasons. For me, it’s down to the two men who carry
the story; Al Pacino as Michael and Robert De Niro as Vito. Pacino is
superlative; bone chillingly-cold and calculating interspersed with fits of
unparalleled rage. His transformation from honest veteran to unhinged Mafioso is
incredible and I don’t think it’s over-the-top to cite his performance as one
of the best ever. He’s just a bloody convincing bastard. Chuck in De Niro using
amazing levels of nuanced acting when re-creating Marlon Brando’s Vito and it
means that pretty much every scene features an actor on top of their game.
It’s an undeniably cool film, it looks incredibly authentic and makes killing your brother/best friends seem endlessly glamorous. The back-stabbing but strangely moral world of the Mafia may seem like a slightly clichéd genre now, but this film is one of the reasons why it became such a popular style of movie in the first place. It taught us the importance of family or rather the hypothetical importance of it (If ever you forget how important family is, just listen to Phil Mitchell on Eastenders –it’s his fall back argument). It taught us how every person can become a cold bastard, and most importantly, it taught us that you should never go fishing when you've pissed off your psychotic, mafia-running brother – Ok, that one may not apply to all of us. However, ‘The Godfather’ made us an offer we couldn't refuse; the second film sealed the deal.
It’s an undeniably cool film, it looks incredibly authentic and makes killing your brother/best friends seem endlessly glamorous. The back-stabbing but strangely moral world of the Mafia may seem like a slightly clichéd genre now, but this film is one of the reasons why it became such a popular style of movie in the first place. It taught us the importance of family or rather the hypothetical importance of it (If ever you forget how important family is, just listen to Phil Mitchell on Eastenders –it’s his fall back argument). It taught us how every person can become a cold bastard, and most importantly, it taught us that you should never go fishing when you've pissed off your psychotic, mafia-running brother – Ok, that one may not apply to all of us. However, ‘The Godfather’ made us an offer we couldn't refuse; the second film sealed the deal.
No comments:
Post a Comment