The Godfather

“The Godfather” needs no introduction. It takes literally no effort to find a parody or reference to it and I doubt we’d have a fascination for the lives of organized criminals if it wasn’t for this Francis Ford Coppola picture. But what if you haven’t seen it already? It’s not unfathomable. The movie is over 40 years old. Will the mountains of quotes ripped right out of it ruin the picture for you? Does it hold up after all this time?

Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) wants nothing to do with his family. They’re criminals. In fact, his father Vito (Marlon Brando) is the titular Godfather, the Don of a powerful New York crime family. Despite his best efforts, Michael becomes increasingly involved in the family business.

You already know how some of this film plays out, but the good news is that the most iconic scenes in this picture are mostly towards the beginning of the film. The lines that are always parodied (even in children’s movies and television shows) are not really essential to the film. It’s not like the true meaning of Rosebud or the contents of the box in “Se7en”. The film is so character-driven and so much of it depends on seeing the gradual transformation of Michael that it's relatively spoiler-proof.

I know the 3-hour running time seems daunting, but I found that it actually helped make the movie easier to understand and completely unpredictable. When a picture is about an hour and a half, you can see the developments coming. Upon that 70-minute mark, your internal clock tells you that it’s about time for the big chase to start or that bombshell of a final clue to show itself. Not here. This is less like a traditional movie and more like a documentary. It’s the life of a person whose family tree is rotten. This picture is a look into the underbelly of organized crime, how things operate, the way they get away with this and how one rationalizes their actions. It’s also a tragedy as Michael discovers that crime is in his blood.

In most movies, there’s a need to condense actions and to spoon-feed the plot to the audience. Someone will look at a newspaper, the camera will show you the headline. Then, cut to the actor’s face, a slow zoom into it until finally they look up and storm off. I’m not saying it’s bad, it’s an effective technique. “The Godfather” contains no such moments. It’s all about letting you slowly piece together what these people are thinking and often, you won’t realize that someone’s heart has changed until it’s too late. It’s so gradual and organic you won’t care that your butt will be a little sore by the time it ends.

The first time you see this movie, it’s likely that you’ll have trouble keeping track of all the characters. There is no Luke Skywalker to ask questions about who this person is, or why this action is taking place. It’s disorienting to a certain extent, but I found that it worked to immerse me that much more. You have to pay attention and piece together who is who on your own. In a mere 90 minute picture, it would be frustrating but here you have plenty of time to figure out what the deal is with all of these people. It makes it seem like real life. You might have to play catch up a bit, but that’s ok. It might even help make the sudden bits of violence that much more shocking because you’ll be distracted trying to figure out how that talk or that one deal fit into the whole thing when all of a sudden - GREAT HAMMER OF THOR! - the guy just got whacked. He didn’t see it coming, and neither did you.

The performances are excellent, the characters memorable, the story elegantly handled, there are many memorable moments and the plot has an impact on you. This is not a film you can easily forget once you’ve seen it. When viewing a picture as renowned as “The Godfather”, I think people worry that it won’t be able to live up to their sky-high expectations. This film does. (On Blu-ray, March 4, 2016)