Lock your doors and hide your cannoli, because Francis Ford Coppola is bringing a bunch of mumbly Italians to the big screen this weekend. If you’ve ever wanted to spend three hours watching men in oversized suits whisper in dark rooms while petting cats, then The Godfather is probably your version of a good time. Based on that book by Mario Puzo that everyone’s grandmother was reading at the beach a few years back, this flick promises to be a long, bloody look at the Corleone family—a group of people who clearly never heard of a simple mediation or a nice, quiet HR department.

The story follows the aging patriarch, Don Vito Corleone, as he tries to figure out which of his sons is the least likely to screw up the family business. You’ve got the hothead, the coward, and the college boy who thinks he’s too good for the family’s “legitimate” olive oil imports. Expect plenty of weddings, funerals, and enough pasta to clog an artery. It’s a crime drama that’s trying very hard to be Shakespeare, but with more tommy guns and fewer tights. If you can handle the runtime without your legs falling asleep, it might just be the epic the critics are already drooling over.

Review by Ben Dover

Let me start by saying that I usually hate movies that last longer than a standard nap, and The Godfather is basically a marathon for your backside. I went into this expecting a bunch of thugs shooting up fruit stands, and while there is some of that, I mostly got three hours of Marlon Brando sounding like he’s got a mouthful of wet cotton balls. Seriously, the man is supposed to be the most powerful guy in New York, and I had to lean so far forward to hear him that I nearly fell out of my damn chair. Put a microphone on the guy or tell him to enunciate! I don’t care how many Oscars you have; talk like a human being!

That being said—and it pains me to admit this because I like being miserable—this movie is actually good. It’s annoying how good it is. It’s got that greasy, gritty feel of New York that makes me want to go home and take a shower, but you can’t look away. Al Pacino plays the youngest son, Michael, and he spends the first half of the movie looking like a deer in headlights. I thought, “This kid? This is the guy?” But then he goes to a restaurant, pops a cop and a drug dealer, and suddenly he’s got eyes like a shark. It’s terrifying. It reminds me of my ex-wife when she found out I forgot our anniversary, but with more gunfire.

The movie is obsessed with “tradition” and “family,” which is just a fancy way of saying they kill people they don’t like. Sonny Corleone, the oldest brother, is a complete maniac. He’s got a temper that makes a hornet’s nest look like a Buddhist retreat. When he gets what’s coming to him at the toll booth, it’s like the Fourth of July but with more lead. I’ll tell you one thing: I’m never driving through a toll booth again without checking for guys in trench coats. These “youths” today with their rock and roll and their long hair think they’re tough? They wouldn’t last five minutes with these guys.

My only real gripe, besides the length and the mumbling, is that everyone is so serious. It’s a three-hour funeral. Would it kill someone to tell a joke? Maybe a knock-knock joke before they garrote someone? And the lighting! It’s so dark I felt like I was watching the movie from inside a coal mine. I know, I know, it’s “artistic,” but I’d like to actually see the actors I paid twelve cents to watch. Despite my grumbling, it’s a masterpiece. There, I said it. Now leave me alone.

The Stars

• Marlon Brando (Don Vito Corleone): The big cheese. He spends most of the movie looking like he’s judging you for your life choices. He’s great, even if you need subtitles for his English.
• Al Pacino (Michael Corleone): Starts as a war hero, ends as a cold-blooded monster. The kid’s got a future, if he doesn’t burst a blood vessel from all that staring.
• James Caan (Sonny Corleone): The human equivalent of a pressure cooker with a broken valve. He’s loud, he’s violent, and he really should have paid the toll faster.
• Robert Duvall (Tom Hagen): The “Consigliere,” which is just Italian for “the guy who has to tell the crazy people to calm down.” He’s the only one who looks like he’s ever had a job that didn’t involve a silencer.
• Diane Keaton (Kay Adams): Michael’s girlfriend. She spends the whole movie looking confused and concerned, which is the correct reaction to dating into this family.

Special Effects and Music

The “special effects” are mostly just bags of fake blood exploding under cheap suits, and honestly, it looks better than any of that computer-generated junk the kids like today. When someone gets hit, they stay hit. The practical stuff—the horse head (don’t ask), the explosions—it all feels uncomfortably real.

As for the music, Nino Rota’s score is the kind of thing that gets stuck in your head for weeks. It’s beautiful, haunting, and makes you want to drink red wine and cry about a cousin you haven’t spoken to in twenty years. It’s the best part of the movie that doesn’t involve someone getting whacked.

Rating

4.5 out of 5 Horse Heads

(I docked half because Brando needs to swallow his spit and talk clearly.)

Overall, watching The Godfather is like viewing a massive, centuries-old oil painting in a dimly lit cathedral: it is dark, heavy, and requires a great deal of patience to take in, but once your eyes adjust, you realize you are looking at a masterpiece that defines its entire genre.

Synopsis and Plot Breakdown

The story kicks off at the wedding of Connie Corleone, daughter of Don Vito. While everyone is dancing and eating, the Don is in his office taking requests for favors because, apparently, in Sicily, you can’t refuse a request on your daughter’s wedding day. It’s a terrible business model, if you ask me. Enter Michael, the “good son” who wants nothing to do with the family’s criminal activities.

Things go south when a greasy guy named Sollozzo asks the Don to help him with a heroin business. The Don says no because he thinks drugs are “dirty” (but gambling and booze are totally fine, apparently). This leads to an assassination attempt on the Don while he’s buying oranges—pro-tip: never buy oranges in a movie, you will die.

With the old man in the hospital, the hotheaded Sonny takes over and starts a gang war. Michael, trying to protect his dad, ends up killing Sollozzo and a corrupt police captain in a small Italian restaurant. He flees to Sicily, gets married, his wife gets blown up (tough luck, kid), and he eventually comes back to New York to take the reins.

After the Don finally kicks the bucket while playing with his grandson in a garden (more oranges!), Michael takes over completely. During his nephew’s baptism, he orchestrates a massive hit, killing off the heads of all the other rival families in a montage that makes “cleaning house” look very literal. He ends the movie as the new Godfather, lying to his wife Kay about his involvement in the murders, and closing the door on her—literally and figuratively.

5 Famous Quotes

1. “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.”
2. “Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”
3. “It’s a Sicilian message. It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.”
4. “Don’t ever take sides with anyone against the Family again. Ever.”
5. “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”
6. “Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment.”
7. “I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart.” 
8. “How do you say banana daiquiri in Spanish?” “Banana daiquiri…” “That’s it?” “That’s it.”

5 Interesting Facts

1. The movie was the highest-grossing film of 1972 and, for a time, the highest-grossing film ever made.
2. The cat Marlon Brando holds in the opening scene was a stray that wandered onto the set. It purred so loudly they had to re-record Brando’s dialogue. Not that you could hear him anyway.
3. The actor playing Luca Brasi was so nervous about acting with Brando that he kept flubbing his lines. Coppola liked the nervousness and kept it in the movie.
4. That horse head in the bed? It was real. They got it from a dog food factory. I hope the actors got a raise for that one.
5. The word “Mafia” is never actually said in the entire movie. I guess they didn’t want to get sued by the guys who actually do that stuff for a living.
6. Al Pacino was so broke during filming that he sold his car to get to the set. Now he can probably buy the whole car company.
7. In The Godfather, oranges are a powerful symbol of impending death, danger, and tragedy, appearing in scenes just before violent events or deaths, like Vito Corleone being shot while buying them or Sonny passing an orange juice billboard before his ambush.

Trailer

Notes

Who the hell mic’d the set when Brando was on, I ended up needing subtitles just for those scenes, the rest of the movie sounded fine. Geez eat marbles much.

The Godfather often glamorized the Mafia, introducing concepts like honor codes and a noble image that real gangsters didn’t always embody, and famously downplaying their involvement in drugs, which was a major source of their real-world income. While some criminal practices (bribery, secrecy) were accurate and drawn from research, the overall depiction is more a stylized, dramatic interpretation than a documentary, even inspiring real mobsters to change their behavior to match the film’s “gentlemanly” image.

The film functions like a dimly lit confession booth: it allows the audience to witness dark and violent sins, but wraps them in the beautiful, haunting music of Nino Rota and the solemnity of “tradition,” making the viewer feel like a participant in a sacred ritual rather than a witness to brutal crimes.

Complete Plot Breakdown of The Godfather: A Story of Family, Power, and Transformation

Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather is more than just a gangster movie; it’s an epic family saga that chronicles the transfer of power from one generation to the next. The film’s intricate plot follows the Corleone family—whose patriarch, Don Vito, is the de facto “godfather” of the Five Families—as they navigate betrayal, war, and loss. At its core, it is the story of Michael Corleone, a decorated war hero and reluctant outsider who is slowly and inevitably pulled into the violent world he once rejected, only to emerge as its most ruthless leader. This breakdown will walk you through the key events of the story, step by step, charting Michael’s dark transformation.

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1.0 An Offer You Can’t Refuse: Setting the Scene

1.1 Connie’s Wedding

The story begins in 1945 amidst the lavish wedding reception of Connie Corleone, the only daughter of the family patriarch, Don Vito Corleone. While guests celebrate outside, the Don holds court in his dimly lit office. According to Sicilian tradition, “no Sicilian can refuse a request on his daughter’s wedding day,” and he spends his time granting favors and dispensing justice.

Here, we meet his youngest son, Michael Corleone, a decorated World War II veteran and college graduate. He arrives with his girlfriend, Kay Adams, and explains to her that he is different from his family; he wants no part in their criminal enterprise. He is the “good son,” determined to stay out of the family business.

1.2 The Corleone Sons

At the wedding, we are introduced to the three sons who represent the future—and the central conflict—of the Corleone family.

1.3 The First Conflict

The peace is shattered by a business proposal from Virgil “The Turk” Sollozzo, a drug baron backed by the rival Tattaglia family. Sollozzo needs the Corleone family’s political protection and financing to launch a massive heroin operation. Don Vito, believing narcotics to be a “dirty” business, refuses the offer. This decision, born from a sense of old-world principle, creates deep tension and sets the stage for a brutal conflict.

This single refusal is the catalyst that ignites a war between the Five Families and drags Michael into a world he swore to avoid.

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2.0 A War Begins: The Don is Down

2.1 The Assassination Attempt

In retaliation for his refusal, Sollozzo’s men gun down Don Vito in the street while he is buying oranges. He is critically wounded but survives, leaving a dangerous power vacuum at the head of the family. The message is clear: the old ways are under attack.

2.2 Sonny Steps Up

With his father in the hospital, the hot-headed eldest son, Sonny, takes command as acting boss. His leadership is defined by rage and impulsiveness. Instead of careful strategy, he launches a bloody gang war against the Tattaglia family, immediately escalating the violence throughout New York.

2.3 Michael Gets Involved

Visiting his father, Michael arrives at the hospital to find him completely unprotected; the police guards are gone. Realizing another hit is imminent, Michael has his father moved to another room and stands guard outside, foiling the planned second assassination attempt before it can happen. This moment is the first time Michael applies his military training—calmness under pressure and strategic thinking—to a family problem, providing a stark contrast to Sonny’s purely emotional leadership.

This decision marks Michael’s first willing step into the family’s violent affairs, driven by a desire to protect his father.

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3.0 Crossing the Line: Michael’s Point of No Return

3.1 “It’s Not Personal, It’s Strictly Business”

Following the hospital incident, Michael stuns his brother and the family captains during a strategy meeting. He volunteers to do what no one else would dare: personally assassinate both Virgil Sollozzo and his bodyguard, the corrupt NYPD Captain McCluskey. Killing a police officer is considered a suicidal act that would bring the full force of the law down on the family. But Michael argues with cold logic that McCluskey is a criminal on Sollozzo’s payroll and therefore fair game. It’s a brilliant and ruthless strategic move that shows a different kind of intelligence than Sonny’s brute force.

3.2 The Restaurant Scene

A meeting is arranged at a small Italian restaurant under the pretense of negotiating a truce. The atmosphere is thick with tension. After a moment of intense internal struggle, Michael excuses himself to the restroom, where a gun has been planted for him. He returns to the table, and in a shocking burst of violence, shoots both Sollozzo and McCluskey dead.

This act is Michael’s point of no return. He has not only committed murder but has declared war on the entire system, forever binding himself to the criminal life he once despised.

The killing forces him to flee the country, beginning a new and transformative chapter of his life.

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4.0 Exile in Sicily: A New Life and a Devastating Loss

4.1 Refuge and Romance

Michael takes refuge in his family’s native Sicily. There, away from the grime and violence of New York, he seems to rediscover a part of himself. He falls deeply in love with a local woman, Apollonia Vitelli, and marries her. For a brief time, he lives a peaceful, almost idyllic life.

4.2 Tragedy Strikes

This peace is brutally shattered. A car bomb intended for Michael explodes, killing Apollonia instantly. This devastating loss serves as a cruel lesson: the consequences of his new life are inescapable, and sentimentality is a fatal weakness. The murder strips away much of Michael’s remaining innocence and hardens him, filling him with a coldness that will define his future.

4.3 War at Home

While Michael is in exile, the war in New York reaches its tragic climax. Enraged and impatient, Sonny falls into a trap set by a rival family. He is ambushed and savagely murdered at a highway toll booth, riddled with dozens of bullets.

With the heir to the Corleone empire dead, the family is in tatters, paving the way for Michael’s return.

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5.0 The New Don Rises

5.1 Return to a Changed Family

Michael returns to New York to find his family weakened and vulnerable. With Sonny dead and Fredo clearly unfit to lead, the recovering Don Vito begins to position his youngest son as his successor. Michael slowly takes over the family business, bringing a new style of quiet, calculating leadership.

5.2 Consolidating Power

As the new head of the family, Michael makes several decisive moves to consolidate his power and plan for the future:

• Marrying Kay: He reconnects with his former girlfriend, Kay Adams, and marries her. He promises that he will make the family business completely legitimate within five years, a vow that convinces her to stay with him.
• Going to Vegas: He travels to Las Vegas to buy out casino owner Moe Greene. When Greene refuses and shows disrespect, Michael asserts his authority without hesitation. He also reprimands his brother Fredo, an act that is about more than just business; by shaming his older brother for siding “with anyone against the Family,” Michael publicly establishes a new, stricter family hierarchy and demonstrates that his authority is absolute.
• Learning from the Master: In his final days, Don Vito acts as Michael’s advisor. He reveals his suspicion that Don Barzini, not Tattaglia, was the true mastermind behind Sonny’s murder and the war.

5.3 The Godfather’s Final Lesson

Don Vito Corleone dies peacefully while playing with his grandson in a garden. Before his death, he gives Michael one final, crucial piece of advice: whoever in the family approaches him to set up a meeting with Barzini is the traitor.

At Vito’s funeral, the veteran caporegime Salvatore Tessio does exactly that, asking Michael to meet with Barzini and sealing his own fate.

With all the pieces in place, Michael is ready to make his final, devastating move.

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6.0 Settling All Family Business: The Baptism

6.1 A Sacred Vow, A Deadly Plan

The climax of Michael’s rise to power is a masterpiece of brutal irony. The film masterfully intercuts scenes of Michael at the baptism of his nephew, where he stands at the altar as godfather and renounces Satan. As he makes these sacred vows, his hitmen are simultaneously carrying out his orders to eliminate all of his enemies.

6.2 The Massacre Montage

In a swift and bloody montage, Michael “settles all family business” by wiping out his rivals and consolidating his power absolutely.

1. Don Barzini, the mastermind of the war, is assassinated.
2. Philip Tattaglia is killed.
3. Moe Greene is shot in Las Vegas.
4. The heads of the other rival New York families are executed.
5. The traitor, Tessio, is led away to be murdered.

6.3 One Final Betrayal

After the baptism, Michael confronts his brother-in-law, Carlo, for his role in setting up Sonny’s murder. After Carlo confesses, Michael has him strangled, avenging his brother and eliminating the last weak link within the family.

This wave of violence cements Michael’s power, but it also completes his descent into darkness.

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7.0 The Door Closes: The Transformation is Complete

The film’s final, chilling scene solidifies Michael’s transformation. His sister Connie, now a widow, hysterically accuses him of murdering Carlo. Kay, horrified, asks Michael if it is true. He looks her directly in the eye and, for the first time, lies to her, calmly denying everything. Relieved, Kay leaves the room to get them a drink.

As she looks back, she sees Michael’s capos paying their respects, kissing his hand and addressing him as “Don Corleone.” The door to Michael’s office slowly closes, shutting Kay out. This final shot is both literal and figurative: Kay is now outside of his secret world, and Michael’s transformation from the hopeful war hero to the cold, calculating, and ruthless new Godfather is absolute.