Director: Frances Ford Coppola
Starring: Marvon Brando, Al PACINO, James Can, Roberts Duvall.
Everyone has been raving about this classic for years, so I have decided to offer my two cents (1.4p) and hopefully offer the definitive review.
Unfortunately I found it to be very disappointing. For a start the title is a total misnomer. There are no godfathers even in the film. The film is also too long; it’s 4 hours but feels like 5! And the plot makes no sense whatsoever. I literally had no idea what was going on or why.
Marvon Brando plays Vito Corrleeown, a morbidly obese Italian gangster with an unfortunate speech impediment. He has a huge family and likes to throw parties for ungrateful guests. The opening party scene was great because I really enjoy accordion music, but sadly it was all downhill after that!
From what I could gather, Vito was picking on some other gangster and the other gangster decided to get revenge. I think it had something to do with Vito placing a dismembered horses head in his bed as a prank. The other gangster took exception to this and gunned down Vito’s son Sonny (played by James Caaaan). And then Vito is shot (SPOILER ALERT!) and his other son Michael (played by Al Pacino) takes over. There is also another son played by Robert Duvall, but he is somehow German and isn’t allowed to make tough decisions. There are also some women in the film.
The 'plot' ambles along clumsily until Vito finally dies (SPOILER ALERT!) and Michael takes over properly. He then kills everyone in sight to stop the police finding out (I think - I didn't actually watch through to the end).
As you can guess there is some appalling violence in this film. A man is shot in the head, a man is shot multiple times with a machine gun, a man is shot in the head, a man is strangled, and a man is shot in the head. To make matters worse, the afforementioned horse is killed! It’s bad enough killing a person, but a horse? A man is also threatened with a dead fish.
There is some comedy. For example, Vito's speaking voice IS hilarious, but it was difficult to understand him. Why cast a funny guy like Brando (who is famous for his crazy splastick and one-liners) but make him impossible to understand? Crazy decision. I did like the bit when Hugh Grant turns up and starts trying to speak like a gangster, but this was too little too late in my opinion.
This was also a very dark film. And by dark, I mean it was too dark to see what was going on. I had to instruct my housekeeper to raise the TV contrast and brightness to 100. Even then it seemed dark, but in retrospect these may have been night scenes.
Almost everyone involved went on to better things. Apart from James Caaan. Frances Ford Coppola later directed the unforgettable Tucker: The Man And His Dream. Robert Duvall was brilliant in that film where he wears a cowboy hat and Al Pacino is great in everything. In fact, Pacino was totally flattened by the talent bus, going on to star in Frankie and Johnny, Dicks Tracy and Insomnia.
