| Generally acknowledged as a bona fide classic, this Francis Ford Coppola film is one of those rare experiences that feels perfectly right from beginning to end--almost as if everyone involved had been born to participate in it. Based on Mario Puzo's bestselling novel about a Mafia dynasty, Coppola's Godfather extracted and enhanced the most universal themes of immigrant experience in America: the plotting-out of hopes and dreams for one's successors, the raising of children to carry on the good work, etc. When an organized crime family patriarch Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) barely survives an attempt on his life, his son Michael (Al Pacino) convinces his brother Sonny (James Caan) to let him take care of the would-be killers. Amid betrayals and corruption, Michael launches a campaign of bloody revenge that continues through the film's two sequels. |