Review by Michael Rizzo Chessman - The Godfather trilogy (Al Pacino, Diane Keaton)

The Godfather is one of the very truly great moments in movie making history in all of its three volumes. Mario Puzo has given us a masterpiece here. This is an interesting look at a subculture which is focused on the needs of family while being outside of mainstream law and political correctness certainly. You find that in the culture of a mobster there can and is concern with children. Selling drugs to kids is rejected even if it means risking lives in turf wars. Every culture has those that are its bad players and we see those here too. The concern with the needs of ones own kin, ones closest responsibilities while carving out a piece of the economic pie through ventures that are deemed relatively harmless relative to drug running (prostitution, gambling etc) is shown in a way as to make the humanness of these mob figures something that you cannot reject outright on some false idea of self righteousness in that a perhaps more selfish existence is something others have for themselves exclusively without even so much of care for the community as these mob figures show for their very own.

In the end however there is too much uncertainty with the lifestyle too much brutality too much bloodshed and too much cruelty. A better way has to be found for all the actors on the stage of crime mob living as it just ain't worth it for the just and great society to see it persist.

The exchanges between Diane Keaton and Al Pacino are interesting showing that he has great sincerity, real masculine idealism of sorts and a sense of goodness that most don't have even outside of mob dealings and leadership. That said, it is brutality that vents itself in seeming insensitivity in that the force with which he needs to express his ideas, where he has to draw the line for her would be overwhelming to an Irish gal if she saw herself as an outsider here. Within his own kinfolk circles Al Pacino's outbursts would be seen as not ill intended. In this respect things lose their meaning when they are out of context and indeed out of place altogether for one or both actors.