The Godfather
The Godfather: first of three movies based on Mario Puzo’s tale of the Sicilian Mafia in New York, circa 1945-1955. There’s no denying that certain aspects of the film are great: it’s littered with original, shocking, powerful, and iconic scenes; there’s page after page of beautifully written dialogue (monologues and large conversations); the cast is truly monumental, and almost everyone is outstanding in their character’s portrayal. My biggest problem with The Godfather is that the sound mix is atrocious and – worse still – some character’s accents are so thick and/or non-enunciated that I watched the entire film with subtitles, in order to make any sense of some characters. Another flaw in the movie is that it could have been edited down, a lot; there’s entire sections of the film that have minimal impact on the story, but drag on and refuse to end (wedding, Sicily…). The direction’s OK – although editing is fairly rough – and the score really adds a punch to the movie. Perhaps this suffers from the ‘Chinatown Effect’ in that a mixture of lifelong hype, and the movie’s impact being far greater when it was released, that modern audiences are left a little cold and short-changed after seeing it. The Godfather feels like a great film diluted down into a good film, but ‘best film of all time’… sit your guinea-wop ass down in front of the tube, put on Godfellas, and tell me this is better – if ya do, ya’ll be sleeping with the fishes, see?
Score: 6/10
I felt about the same way when I saw this for the first time. I thought it was a little boring and I had some of the same trouble with some of the accents. However, I watched it again about a year later and loved it. I’m saying you will love it if you rematch it in a year or anything, but it just pains me to see someone give one of my favorite movies, and one that I consider a masterpiece, a 6/10.
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Disagree. One of the greatest films ever.
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I personally enjoyed The Godfather a lot, but I think you make valid points.
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6/10? You watched The Godfather, right? Like, THE Godfather, 1972, Mario Puzo, Marlon Brando, Coppola, mob, need I state more keywords? I’m just shocked. Not sure I can leave a comment. :(
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Seriously, the same film. As I mentioned, probably a mix of lifelong hype and having seen dozens of other amazing gangster pics I was probably expecting too much.
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That’s quite possible. I’ve seen a good handful of “gangster movies” and I don’t think there’s many that keep the solemnity that The Godfather does.
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