reviewed by Charity Bishop
     

If The Godfather was a story about a man's descent into evil, its sequel is about the eventual loss of his soul.

Near the turn of the century, an Italian family follows a funeral procession toward the local cemetery, but midway there are interrupted by gunshots. The elder son has been murdered on the road, leading his newly widowed mother to go to the Don responsible and plead for the life of her youngest child, Vito. She promises he will not avenge the deaths of his father and brother when he comes of age, but the Don coldly refuses and orders the boy to be killed. To save his life, his mother pulls out a knife and defends him, leading to her own death and leaving nine year old Vito on his own. In spite of the danger from the Don, friends of his family hide him and eventually he makes his way to America. At customs, he is given the last name of "Corleone" after the city he came from. As an adult, living and working in New York while attempting to look after his wife and baby, Vito (Robert De Niro) discovers that his Italian neighbors are being terrorized by a local thug. His determination to protect them takes him down a dangerous road from which there is no return.

Many years later, his youngest son Michael (Al Pacino) has moved their family operations to Nevada, where gambling, drug rings and prostitution are proving highly lucrative. But not everyone likes him there, including a local senator who intends to make his takeover of another casino chain difficult. That problem is pushed to the back of his mind when an assassination attempt is made against him. Bullets slam into the walls of his bedroom, nearly taking his life and threatening that of his pregnant wife Kay (Diane Keaton). Michael is furious and determined to get to the bottom of it. He suspects his Jewish associate and fellow mafia lord Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg), but knows someone within his own family gave Roth the information needed to make a hit. The corresponding manhunt and manipulations of his suspected adversaries lead to multiple deaths and further assassination attempts. Meanwhile, his relationship with his wife is failing in her knowledge that he has not followed through on his promise to become a "legitimate" businessman.

Fans of this film series consider the second Godfather film to be just as good as the first. It is undoubtedly a magnificent character study and manages to capture the two different time periods included without faltering. The director takes a chance in taking us back and forth between the different storylines, which are intended to contrast the differences between Vito and Michael. Vito is devoted to his family and knows how to separate his "business" and "personal" life, whereas the more cold-hearted Michael cannot accomplish that and it only tears his delicate family framework apart. Shifting back and forth between the individual plots is not difficult but Michael's aspect of the story tends to skip around, overlook facts, leave out important details, and rely on the audience's ability to fill in the missing pieces, which means that for a first-time viewer it is difficult to follow. Certain portions of the story are left out and while some of the information is filled in later, at the time it leaves you wondering what is happening and who is responsible for what hit. Once you know who tried to kill Michael, it's easy to go back and see how he reached his ultimate conclusion, but the involved mind games make for a problematic first viewing. A good movie should be easy to follow and not rely on the belief that an audience will watch it a second time. In that regard, this sequel fails to stand on its own two feet.

Regardless of this rather prominent flaw (and I presume the result of on-set rewrites), the film did manage to earn a number of awards including some for acting. It did not however earn an Oscar for Al Pacino, who well deserves one for his icy depiction of a man who has reached the end of his moral conscience and chooses to go on without it. One of the finest scenes and consequently, the most difficult to watch, is when he has a confrontation with his wife. Kay tells him something he does not want to hear -- and the composed, normally distant man snaps. The rage is evident in his face even though he hardly changes expression. The rest of the cast is equally superb, particularly De Niro as a lovable but intimidating young Vito. He brings just the right amount of danger and charm to the part, a perfect foil for the earlier interpretation by Marlon Brando. The atmosphere is haunting and it has reproduced the same dull, colorless scheme of the first film, granting the audience a feeling of isolation and the absence of true happiness.

The content is moderate to mild depending on the situation. There are three f-words, eight abuses of Jesus' name, two GD's, and other mild profanities. (One character is fond of calling everyone "sons of...") Scantily clad women are seen in a brothel and dancing suggestively on stage in Cuba. A group of businessman go to an underground club known for its indecencies; vague dialogue implies that the nude man on stage has been well endowed (we never see anything). A senator wakes up beside a prostitute that has been brutally murdered; he doesn't remember what happened and is seen trying to clean up the blood (she is fully covered). There is a rather lengthy scene in which we see a naked baby boy. One man kisses another on the mouth (it's non-romantic, and actually implies through Sicilian culture that the second man is about to be killed). The violence is difficult to watch -- we see a man with a cord around his neck being dragged away to be strangled; the police interrupt and a shoot-out transpires. Vito wraps a revolver in a towel and brutally kills a man; he shoots him once in the chest, once in the face, and then into his mouth to finish him off. Other characters are shot and killed; a man is sliced open with a knife (we see it go in and then his murderer drags it all the way up across and through his chest). A man slaps a woman so hard she falls down. There is an extended conversation about a woman having had an illegal abortion. She refers to it as having "murdered" their son.

In the original film we saw Michael abandon his good intentions to protect his family, and in this one we watch as his increasing desire for absolute power ultimately drives everyone he loves away from him. It is not a happy movie because it is about the complete descent of a man into absolute evil. Director Coppola once said the first two films were about the deaths of brothers and their impact on Michael, but I disagree with him. I think The Godfather series is about the death of Michael -- a death that begins the moment he kills the men who attempted to assassinate his father in cold blood. His body may be unharmed but his soul has been tarnished. And that is a truly tragic thing to watch.