“The Godfather Part III” arrived 16 years after “The Godfather Part II,” and it carries the weight of that gap in every frame. Francis Ford Coppola directed and produced the film from a screenplay he co-wrote with Mario Puzo. Al Pacino returns as Michael Corleone, now approaching 60 in 1979, a man trying to buy his way out of the life he built.
The result is a film caught between two jobs: closing a trilogy and standing on its own. It does the first better than the second.
Trailer, via Paramount Plus Nordic.
Michael Corleone’s Confession
Michael is plagued with guilt over his rise to power, especially for ordering the murder of his brother Fredo. He donates millions to charity. He and Kay Adams, played by Diane Keaton, are divorced, and their children Anthony and Mary live with her.
At a reception in Michael’s honor at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, Anthony tells his father he is leaving law school to become an opera singer. Kay backs the decision. Michael eventually lets him go.
Then Kay drops the real weight: she and Anthony know the truth about Fredo.
Pacino plays this as a man negotiating with his own history, and the scenes land. The film’s problem is that it keeps interrupting them.
Vincent Mancini Bites Joey Zasa
Andy Garcia arrives as Vincent Mancini, the illegitimate son of Michael’s long-dead brother Sonny. Connie, played by Talia Shire, arranges for Vincent to settle a dispute with his rival Joey Zasa, played by Joe Mantegna. Zasa calls Vincent a bastard. Vincent bites his ear.
Michael is troubled by the temper and impressed by the loyalty. He brings Vincent into the family business.
Garcia is the best new thing in the film, and the script knows it. But the Vincent material competes with the Vatican plot for room, and neither gets enough.
The Immobiliare Deal
Archbishop Gilday, head of the Vatican Bank, has run up a deficit of $769 million. Michael offers $600 million for the Vatican’s shares in Internazionale Immobiliare, which would give him a controlling interest. The board approves, pending ratification by Pope Paul VI.
Don Altobello, played by Eli Wallach, tells Michael that his partners on The Commission want in. Michael, wanting to be legitimate, pays them his sold Las Vegas holdings instead. Zasa gets nothing, declares Michael his enemy, and storms out.
The film folds in fictionalized versions of two real events: the 1978 death of Pope John Paul I and the Papal banking scandal of 1981–1982.
It is a lot of machinery. Some of it turns.
The Casting That Reshaped the Film
The film’s most consequential absence is Robert Duvall. He refused to return as Tom Hagen unless paid comparably to Pacino’s $6 million from the previous film. On CBS’s “60 Minutes” in 2004, Duvall said: “If they paid Pacino twice what they paid me, that’s fine, but not three or four times, which is what they did.”
Coppola rewrote the screenplay to make Hagen dead before the story begins and created B.J. Harrison, played by George Hamilton, as a smaller replacement. Coppola has said the movie feels incomplete “without [Robert] Duvall’s participation.”
The role of Mary went through a longer shuffle. Winona Ryder was initially cast, then left due to other commitments. Julia Roberts dropped out after being cast in “Pretty Woman.” Madonna tested, but Coppola felt she was too old once Garcia was cast. Sofia Coppola took the part.
- Al Pacino as Michael Corleone
- Diane Keaton as Kay Adams
- Talia Shire as Connie Corleone Rizzi
- Andy Garcia as Vincent Mancini
- Eli Wallach as Don Altobello
- Joe Mantegna as Joey Zasa
- George Hamilton as B.J. Harrison
- Sofia Coppola as Mary Corleone
The title Coppola and Puzo wanted was “The Death of Michael Corleone.” Paramount rejected it. They were right that the film is an epilogue, and wrong to think the studio could sell it as anything else.
| Year | Event in the Corleone timeline |
|---|---|
| 1978 | Death of Pope John Paul I |
| 1979 | Michael’s reception; Vincent joins the family |
| 1981–1982 | Papal banking scandal |
| 1990 | Film released |
The runtime is 162 minutes, and it feels like it. The Vatican thread is the weakest of the three strands, because it asks the audience to care about a real estate deal in the middle of a family tragedy.
What actually matters here is smaller and sadder: a man who has won everything and can buy nothing he needs. Every scene where Michael tries to purchase forgiveness — the donations, the deal, the legitimacy — is the film working. Every scene where the plot explains itself is the film stalling.
Garcia and Wallach hold their ground. Sofia Coppola was handed an impossible role under impossible scrutiny, and the film never gives Mary enough to do beyond being the thing Michael might still save.
This is not a bad film. It is an unfinished one, and it knows it. The trilogy’s first two parts told a complete story; this one is an epilogue that keeps apologizing for existing.
6 of 10.
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