The Godfather Part III (1990) – Review

Yeah sure, Return Of The Jedi may have set the precedent about threequels being the worst installment of a trilogy, but not all the teddy bears and puppets in the galaxy can match the reputation of the third chapter of the Godfather saga, which has been thoroughly dunked on since it’s release in 1990. Quite how a series so regularly lauded as one of the best in existence managed to provide a closing installment so hated is something of a mystery that’s plagued film lovers for years – but is The Godfather Part III really as bad as many maintain?
There’s undeniably some issues here to be sure, and the saga doesn’t exactly find Ford Coppola on top form; but despite some glaring problems and some pacing issues, you can’t deny that the story of the Corleone family comes to a definitive close with all the scheming and murder you’d expect from a cinema’s most famous crime saga. It’s just a shame it can’t match it’s peerless predecessors…

The year is now 1979, and in the wake of ordering the death of his own brother, Fredo, Michael Corleone has launched a campaign to quash his terrible guilt. Now 60, he hasn’t been able to ignore the blood on his hands and has since started make amends by donating millions to charity. Aside from being a benifactor for various causes, Michael has also made a gargantuan effort to go legit, palming off old territory and casinos to other branches of the organisation, but this hasn’t stopped his personal issues from taking their toll.
Divorced from Kay, Michael’s relationship with his daughter Mary is still strong, but tension is noticable between him and his son, Anthony, especially when he finds that his eldest child wants to drop law school in favour of becoming an opera singer. But while he’s figuring all this out, other issues hold his attention. For a start, Sonny’s illegitimate son, Vincent Mancini, has been causing ripples in the family by accusing rival Joey Zazza of disrespecting Michael in private and after the former Don is impressed by his bastard nephew’s loyalty, he takes him under his wing to sand off those rough edges. Meanwhile, Michael is doing business with the Vatican bank and hopes that after paying off a sizable chunk of it debts, he’ll be granted a controlling interest in their international real estate company – lmmobiliare.
However, some aren’t as eager as Michael is to see the Don go legit, and after he severs his last ties with his former life, an attempt to eradicate him means that the hotel in Atlantic Cuty where the conference is being held is going to need a shitload of renovations. Who is targeted Michael when he’s so close to leaving the world of organised crime behind him and can he keep Vincent on a leash long enough to have him follow in his stead?

The issues with Coppola’s closing chapter have been examined many times in the past both with cool detachment and rage fuelled rants, but the simple facts are thus: the biggest crime Godfather III commits is that it can’t live up to the impossibly flawless run set by it’s legendary forebears. Nothing really existed that was anything like The Godfather when the first movie broke new ground and the sequel went on single handedly change expectations of what a follow up can actually achieve. In comparison, the third movie has nothing particularly to offer when it comes to breaking the cinematic mold and there’s a feeling that the director maybe should have attempted his trilogy capper sooner, or maybe not even made it at all. A main issue is with Michael himself and while a wrinkled up Al Pacino certainly has the goods before he settled more into his shoutier phase as the 90s progressed, an older, more sedate Michael simply isn’t anywhere as engrossing as the arc that saw him morph from angel-eyed son, to cold-hearted brother killer. As a result Godfather III often feels less like a full chapter and more like a plodding epilogue that sees the story come to an eventual rolling stop rather than a big finish. Gone is that icy tension of what hideous things the Mafia could to to each other at any moment, or that steely bond of family and in return as a rather middling affair that grinds to a halt when the film up and moves to Scilly for a spell. However, probably the mist discussed issue is that of Sofia Coppola’s role of Mary Corleone, and while I’m not about to add myself to the slew of reviewers who dragged the future director of Lost In Translation for her questionable acting abilities, the subplot that sees her fall for her own cousin is just too weird to comprehend. Let’s put it this way, if Robert Duvall’s Tom Hagen was still around, he wouldn’t have let half this shit go down…

However, once you acclimatise yourself to the disappointment that Godfather Part III isn’t going to match up to it’s promise, you’re primed to see the good in it and when Coppola manages to get that old oomph back, it’s easier to spot when the film finally lives up to the hype in various bursts. For a start, almost single handedly carrying the film on shoulders clad in expensive leather is Andy Garcia’s Vincent, and while his love affair with his own cousin does trip up his arc occasionally, his ramped up, hot-headed performance not only gives the movie some much-needed balls, but it evokes favorable memories of James Caan’s Sonny who would also memorably fly off the handle at a moment’s notice. If we look elsewhere, while Coppola fails to give a lot of the scheming and deals the crackle they once had, he’s really stepped up his game when it comes to the increasingly flamboyant hits that punctuate the film. Not to sound too macabre, but Part III mostly finds its feet whenever orchestrating impressively epic setpieces and violently shedding the cast of hapless capos. Be it Joe Mantegna getting drilled by Andy Garcia on horseback (what a way to go), to the truly impressive helicopter attack on the Atlantic City hotel that sees a bunch of Dons get torn to shreds as machine gun fire sees their entire room get tore up from the floor up. Finally, the climactic set piece that sees a hitman stalking a unsuspecting Michael through an opera house is made all the better as it’s intercut with Michael’s various enemies getting wiped off the board gives the saga the big finish it truly deserves and even Sofia Coppola’s unresponsive acting can’t dull the power of that haunting, silent scream that Pacino delivers at that tragic climax.

If you can reset your expectations (or, at the very least, seek out the The Godfather Coda re-edit), then The Godfather Part III isn’t quite the franchise implosion that it’s billed out to be. However, there’s no escaping that despite numerous exemplary moments, Coppola’s third go-round is lacking the sheer magnetism of the first entry and the sheer complexity of the second. In fact, if I had to rank the movies as the Corleone brothers themselves, it’s obvious to everyone that Part III is unavoidably the Fredo of the bunch.
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