Il padrino - Parte III

I was extremely excited to see the new cut of The Godfather Part III. I bought a digital copy. As I was seeing the movie, I could barely notice any changes.

By the trailer of this movies, I was led to believe that Sofia Coppola's role was going to be drastically cut; that was not the case. As you probably now, her acting has been the biggest point of contention against Part III.

After the movie ended, I felt that I was cheated. The differences in The Godfather Part III and The Godfather Coda are just too small to make a big deal out of them. I was expecting to see a big improvement that take this movie closer to the level of the first two parts, but was very disappointed.

The Godfather: Part III is a good movie with a reasonably well developed plot and a terrific cast. It certainly stands out on its own, Al Pacino shines as Michael Corleone here, being his first time playing the character in 16 years, it is as if he never left the role. Francis Ford Coppola's direction is still on point, though the writing may not feel as passionate, he still manages to bring the world to life in s splendid manner, the only way he knows how.

The dialogue and overall story is far less inspired than the previous two, it never manages to make much of an impact. Having no Vito Corleone in this one was a big loss, I understand that his story came to a close in the second film, but he was the heart and soul, as well as the highlight, of these movies, there was a gaping whole without him. I was not a fan of Andy Garcia's character, merely a repeat of the same type of role Pacino had in the first Godfather, but never as effective. While its flawed and certainly not a pleasing finale to the trilogy, The Godfather: Part III is still a must watch for fans of the first two, you might as well form your own opinion of it.

Michael Corleone confesses his sins while trying to legitimize his business to keep his family safe as he ages.

Best Performance: Al Pacino / Worst Performance: Sofia Coppola

This film came out about the same time as Goodfellas, and pales in comparison with the Martin Scorsese effort. I know the two shouldn't be compared, but the fact that they are both gangster films begs some sort of comparison.

Does Godfather III "complete" Coppola's Godfather series? Only in the sense that we see what happens to Michael when he is an old man. In my opinion, we didn't really need to know that. To me, the Godfather films ended with Michael Corleone as a shell of a man after losing his wife and murdering his brother.

Besides, I'm of the view that the best American films of the 20th century were made in the 1970s.

Michael Corleone has sold his illegal business in an attempt to win back his family. However he must still contend with up and coming mobsters such as Vincent, who wants to work for him and Joey Zasa, who wants to fully take over the Corleone family's territory. When the Corleone family begin to deal with the Vatican and plan to buy out their share of an multinational corporation he finds that the Vatican is just as corrupt as his illegal operations were. Despite his best efforts he finds himself sucked back into the world he has tried to leave behind.

Easily one of the most hated films ever made – or at least you'd think it was by the critical mauling it got for a raft of reasons. However watching it now it isn't that bad and really it only suffers from comparison with the two films before it. But lets be fair, Coppola has made 3 or 4 of the best films ever made – did we really expect another one from him?

The film has a reasonable plot and brings the trilogy to a logical end. The plot however does have it's weaknesses – for example it starts well with Michael's attempt to `get out' being hampered by other families on their way up. But when it starts to get involved with money laundering through the Vatican and the corruption therein, it starts to lose it's way and it's focus on Michael.

The main weakness comes in the characters. Would Michael really go straight just to get his family back – and how come he managed to do it so easily up till the time of the film? Worse still is Connie who seems to have become some sort of Mafia widow when that was not part of her character in the previous films – would she really have got that twisted or influential? Little problems like these just bugged me and they also fed into the performances.

For such a great cast the acting was very average. Pacino is good but I sensed he didn't see Michael turning out this way and he didn't convince occasionally. Keaton has little to do and again I felt that her approach to Michael was too forgiving, although maybe I'm not allowing for time. As I Siad before Shire was doing some sort of `Bride of Frankenstein' act as Connie and I didn't buy it for a moment. Garcia was OK and faces like Wallach, Hamilton and the like helped. The two worst performances were sadly two of the main ones. First Joe Mantegna…..now it wasn't that it was bad – it was more that I've seen him do so much better. Here all I could think of when I watched him was how his character and his acting was very like his Simpsons' character of ` Fat Tony'. Bare in mind Fat Tony is meant to be a spoof of the Mafioso characters and you'll see why I didn't like it.

The worse performance was Sofia Coppola. Now she was vilified at the time for her role – a bit unfairly and cruelly but she was still bad. She has this strange scowl on her face for most of the film and she acts like a spoil little girl. She also has no realism in her voice and speaks in the same constant tone – that Vincent would fall for her was just a leap of faith too far to accept. The cast does have others who are unused or underused – Fonda being the best example. Why did she bother with that role!?

Overall, this is miles behind the other two Godfathers and it has plenty of weaknesses. However at it's heart it's a good try as the concluding part and the story is watchable. It's not bad, it just is average and it feels like the director and large sections of the cast felt they just had to turn up to make a third classic film.

I stayed away from this film for a long time, doing a dumb thing: listening to the well-known film critics.

When I finally got around to it, I was very surprised. It was a good film. Not great, not intense as the first two Godfather flicks, but definitely a lot better than advertised.

Many people said this was filled with anti-Roman Catholic propaganda, but I didn't it find that way. Yes, the "Vatican bank," whatever that is, was portrayed as not on the up-and-up, but it was a little confusing to follow, maybe too confusing to get offended! Actually, there were some positive things, religious-wise, with Al Pacino's character, who sought forgiveness for his past sins and made a few very profound statements such as, "What good is confession if it isn't followed by repentance?"

Anyway, Pacino's acting talents are the main attraction in the lower-key, more cerebral Godfather film. There isn't that much action but when it occurs, it's pretty violent. As with the other two films in the series, it's nicely photographed with a lot of nice brown tints.

Finally, director-writer Francis Ford Coppola took a lot of flak for putting his daughter in such an important role but I thought she (Sofia Coppola) was fine and - like this film - unfairly criticized.