SOURCE: A review of The Godfather Part III, in Cineaste, Vol. XVIII, No. 2. 1991, pp. 41-3.

[In the following review, Jaehne lists several of the faults of Coppola's Godfather III and concludes. "Maybe its's time for Coppola to give up sequels and create some original sins."]

A baroque vision of life at the top of the criminal ladder in the rusty hues of blood and dried blood, The Godfather Part III is about the cost of redeeming one's soul, especially when that soul has been so neglected it looks like the dilapidated house at Lake Tahoc where Godfather II stopped and Part III begins. Michael Corleone's life is redeemed, apparently, during the flashforward to his death in the garden, when he falls off his chair. Straight but stiff.

"The only wealth," sighs the Godfather (Al Pacino) in the first of dozens of epigrammatic lines of dialog, "is children. More than power or money." Aha! So a child is what he will have to pay for his soul! But which child? Anthony (Franc D'Ambrosio), who's given up capos for opera capes? Nah, he's abandoned the Family for Art. But here comes Mary (Sofia Coppola), with a madonna's resemblance to Michael's first wife, whom he married during exile in Sicily. She died for his sins, when she got behind the wheel of his car.

When the crimes of the fathers are visited on the sons, there's nothing like a female sacrifice to elevate the tragedy. It reeks of ancient blood ritual, recalling the Oresteia, that Greek trilogy in which Aeschylus immortalized the horrors of the House of Atreus—child sacrifice, fratricide, patricide, matricide, even genocide at Troy, but also a new order of justice ushered in by a democratically-inclined Athena to cleanse Orestes from the terrible traditions of blood revenge.

Godfather III needed to present such a transition to a new and higher form of justice, but in the by now apocryphal six weeks in a Reno casino that it took to write the script, clearly nobody thought of anything new or lofty. This tale of decadence only hints at a dark past seeping into a dark present with some properly Viscontian touches—opera, incest and seething Sicily.

The political engagement of Godfather III is equally tiresome and second hand. While it may have been shocking in the Seventies to assert that one could make a business out of crime or that Mafia "businessmen" could wield substantial political clout, the last twenty years of indictments against public officials and financiers, along with the utter collapse of integrity in American leadership makes mincemeat of many of the film's brave assertions. "I don't need tough guys. I need more lawyers!'," says the Godfather. Tell it to Ed Meese. "The higher I go, the crookeder it gets." Tell it to the Iranscam Special Prosecutor.

"Politics and crime—they are the same thing." That one is emblazoned across the screen in subtitles, indicating that the Italians knew long ago the lessons of the S&L scandals. And when a Cardinal "contemplates eternity," he's playing for time. The dialog recapitulates the cynical lessons of two decades, adding nothing and merely recalling that several of the Watergate engineers also found God somewhere between the White House and their publishing houses. Wouldn't be it great to read The Memoirs of Michael Corleone: Doin' the Vatican Rag?

Our disappointment in the film goes beyond the customary stupidity of sequels rushed through production to satisfy studio release patterns. After creating one of the great mythic characters of American cinema, Coppola shows the effects on his own life of the last two decades by taking a dive for Paramount Pictures. But beyond sheer need or avarice (reportedly $5 million if he could get the film out in 1990), most annoying is his failure to cap the theme running through the previous Godfathers—the transfer of power from one generation to the next.

The previous films showed us the decline of power from a father in the old Mafia to a son who must carry on in a modern mob. In part III, however, we see the decline of power from God—he who made and rules the very universe—to his children who purport to carry on his works on earth, the Vatican fathers. The sons of God upstage the sons of Sicily.

The script of Mario Puzo and Coppola retains the structural framework of the other two films: the opening scene at a family ritual celebration; the family's position within the Mafia being challenged; the intrafamily disputes calling for a new Godfather; the unsuitability of the 'crown prince'; the perception of their 'business' as the cutting edge of the American way and the concomitant search for new 'markets,' culminating with a challenge to the family's supremacy that exacts an act of violence from the wannabe Godfather even against his will, leading to a spectacular series of killings, as a newly designated heir seizes control of the clan and discovers in his power only splendid isolation. The old don succumbs in his garden like those Roman Emperors who, after the savagery of Ancient Rome, retired to contemplation and cabbages.

The grandeur of the conception is not diminished by using a formula, but the formula serves both the content and style to make of it a kind of 'spaghetti Bertolucci' movie. The frame is too ornate for the picture, and the plot fails to carry us beyond melodrama. The affectation of style becomes the content, as in Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns. This Family doesn't feud: it squabbles. Their business is not the crime intrinsic to the American Way of Life. They just have nasty colleagues.

Like the "just say no" culture of the Eighties, they want to get clean and sober and into an international conglomerate. That is presented as an abstraction by the name of Immobiliare (the word means real estate and has a cognate in every European language). Once beyond the confines of Little Italy, the Corleones are tiresomely amorphous and have the occasional glamour of folks promoted by Vanity Fair. They wear designer clothes and act elusive. They may found Mobsters Anonymous!

When we first rejoin la Famiglia Corleone, Michael is being celebrated at a mass as he receives the Order of San Sebastian for his benevolence. Anyone daring to express surprise at his newfound stature is silenced with a rude "Shaddup! Ya tink ya know beduh dan da Pope?!" Infallibility has never been the Pope's forte: now come the Corleones to reinforce it.

Still, the key to this Godfather is nothing less than theological, forcing us to ask if an old mobster's soul can be saved according to the doctrine of the Church (none of this weird fundamentalist stuff). Michael himself asks, "What is the use of confession, if I don't repent?" Damned good question—but keep your eye on the business implications of following the letter of the law: a confession usually prompts absolution (in the movies it always does). Indeed, Michael's confession of his sins to the man who would be Pope is the linchpin of the film (even if the scene seems to lack the creative force we expect of such a moment). He admits to having killed his brother and the confessor blesses him. He's not even sent off with his rosary for a Hail Mary!

Because the priest to whom he entrusts all this becomes Pope, that Pope can then permit Michael to join the worthy board of Immobiliare. We are forced to ask ourselves if this is the reason for the poisoning of that Pope; it is only suggested, but we do get a clear picture of foul play with the Pontiff. Do not make the mistake of thinking that the Pope's knowledge of Michael's crimes implicates the Pope himself in any intrigue. On the contrary, Michael has been forgiven, and his confessor is the only one who knows for sure. Michael can repent later, once he's seen his daughter die in his place on the steps of the opera house.

It has been difficult to get two or more critics to agree on the financial details of the plot, depending on the need to acknowledge the international banking and business conflict that constitutes the motor of the storyline. Archbishop Gilday (Donal Donnelly) approaches Michael to help him out of the embarrassing situation of accounting for a $750 million deficit in the Vatican coffers (betrayed by an unscrupulous or atheist accountant). Michael says, "Let's make a deal."

Their negotiation culminates in Michael giving $600 million to the Vatican directly or making it an investment into the business (this is unclear) in exchange for a sizable chunk of Immobiliare Internationale, twenty-five percent of which is controlled by the Vatican. But the upright European businessmen on the board of Immobiliare hesitate to permit this known criminal into their midst.

They apprise Corleone of ancient, gnarly rules that bind their decisions, which may even require the consent of the Pope himself. (About financial matters? Could Michael Milken be Pope?!) As a kind of option. Michael contributes $200 million to a church fund through the new $100 million endowment of the Corleone Foundation, headed up by the virginal Mary Corleone.

When the Pope falls ill (as happened in 1978 when two popes died in suspiciously quick succession), the Vatican bells toll and the byzantine process of electing a new pope stops all business. Michael hangs out in Sicily waiting to be let in back in Rome. And here we pick up the developing relationship between Michael and Vincent Mancini (Andy Garcia).

Vincent is the illegitimate (everything else is illegitimate; why not the next Godfather?) son of Michael's brother Sonny (James Caan). He is also a hood who has been creating havoc among the New York mob because he staunchly defends Uncle Michael against upstart mobster Joey Zasa (Joe Mantegna), his employer. Even if Vinnie's methods are those of a blabbermouth street kid who has crashed Michael's all-too-legitimate party, he brashly gets what he seeks in an audience with the Godfather.

He's like a mutt from the pound about to be trained like a German Shepherd. Most important, he is the protégé of the now murderous Aunt Connie (Talia Shire), who warns Michael, "They fear you!" To which he cannily replies, "They ought to fear you." Yes, the women have become as monstrous as the men. The only ironic comment comes from ex-wife Kay (Diane Keaton), now a socialite who shows up to tell Michael, "Now that you're respectable, you're more dangerous than ever."

If the movie has a message, that's it. Watching the refining process of Vincent, we rather regret his transition from a volatile street fighter into a manipulative mobster. He is the life of the film, this leather-clad, fast-talking stud, the only one with enough charisma to interest either Michael or us for an entire three-plus hours or into another sequel. It is inevitable that we compare Vincent to Michael. Garcia to Pacino. And to Marlon Brando and Robert de Niro as the original.

Andy Garcia plays the gangster as a man with the strong family loyalties of someone trying to get under an umbrella he really needs. But he also has a keen intelligence honed by the martial arts rather than The Method. He can't throw away lines, as did Brando and de Niro; nor can he reproduce Pacino's dormant volcano persona. Garcia is like a cat prowling and pouncing, nothing escaping his youthful predatory instincts. He is only dull when he preys upon Goddaughter Mary. Here, we should see the crackle and spark of sin: instead, she is so flummoxed in his presence that he can only coax her through her lines with eyes that widen in patience rather than desire. A taboo requires recognition: poor Sofia Coppola plays the role as a maiden gently awakening to love not lust.

This relationship needs to feed into the Corleone family's increasing resemblance to the mythic Borgias of the Renaissance, a theme underlined by dialog like "What's this with the Borgias? Those days are over." At the Minetta Lane Tavern, an infamous Greenwich Village pub frequented by gangsters, Vincent and Mary rendezvous. She asks if her father killed Vincent's father Sonny, and Vincent tells her reassuring stories. The children propagating family legend dare not face the family history.

If the past has shaped these characters, it's hard to know why. Even their Sicilian roots have been spruced up; when did the Sicilian wing of the family move from the traditional square stucco villa outside Agrigento to the elegant Santo Domingo Hotel in Taormina (a seventeenth century baroque monastery renovated to five-star status)? Stolid Tom Hagen replaced by day-glo George Hamilton?

For a film decrying excess and corruption, its own departure from verisimilitude and credible characters allows for no moral or esthetic yardstick: you are forced to go back and see the first two films to figure out why Michael is nattering on about the legitimate world. We got glimpses of legitimacy and commonplace expectations in those films; we knew just how abnormal each family member was. Godfather III, however, breathes the thin air of the thoroughly idle rich. The muscular ambition of Andy Garcia as Vincent provides some foil to what often feels like a Robin Leach tour of lifestyles of the rich and famoso. The token violence, isolated as set pieces, makes this "mob manqué."

It attains grand guignol when Aunt Connie gives a neat package of poisoned cannoli to poor old Don Altobello (Eli Wallach) an old Sicilian family friend who turned on Michael. Under the gaze of her opera glasses, he devours his gift during the opera's canzone. Which returns us to the original dilemma of making this film in a society where law and order have ceased to command respect! The Borgia ethic is the rule rather than the exception. A casino full of capos gets strafed in Atlantic City—that's hoary news compared to the corruption of Pete Rose or the plagiarism of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Perhaps it's a harbinger of things to come that the Godfather is worried about his soul. Michael's search for redemption could have made a formidable foundation for this unwieldy plot construction, even as his old gang lined up behind him, hoping the cleansing affects of the Immobiliare deal could stretch to purify their money too. The business deal with the Vatican, however, is a Hydra-headed problem of the plotline that distracts us from the Godfather's spiritual struggle.

"The power to absolve debt," says the worldly archbishop, "is greater than the power of forgiveness." Lines like this seem to speak to Coppola's reasons for making the film, from publicized bankruptcy in 1990 to the tragic death of his son Gio in 1986. But absolution, as any Hollywood Catholic knows, cannot be had from Paramount. Maybe it's time for Coppola to give up sequels and create some original sins.