#32 ‘The Godfather Part II’
Bloodlines, Brooding, and the Slow Death of the Feminine
The Godfather Part II (1974) is often praised as the rare sequel that transcends its predecessor—epic in scale, operatic in tone, and more introspective in its dissection of power, loyalty, and moral corrosion. But let’s not get lost in the rich mahogany of its production design: this is three-and-a-half hours of watching men mutter, murder, and manipulate each other while women sob offscreen or vanish entirely. It’s not just a tragedy—it’s a eulogy for anything tender, maternal, or humane.
We follow two timelines: young Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro) rising through the criminal ranks with quiet resolve and paternal charm, and his son Michael (Al Pacino) sliding deeper into the abyss of paranoia and patriarchal psychosis. Vito’s story is full of texture—immigration, survival, community. Michael’s? It’s a cold, clinical autopsy of a man who mistakes power for purpose and isolation for strength.
And it is exhausting.
Al Pacino is brilliant, yes, in that haunted-statue sort of way, but watching Michael glare at people from behind curtains and silently orchestrate betrayals is like being trapped in a therapy session for someone else’s deeply repressed father complex. He’s lost everything that made him human, and the film treats that as inevitable, even admirable. Ruthlessness, we’re told, is the natural endpoint of responsibility. And God forbid you question the throne.
Women? Forget it. Kay (Diane Keaton) is given a single moment of defiance—the iconic “I aborted your child” bombshell—and the film punishes her instantly. Michael slaps her, throws her out, cuts her off from the children, and we’re supposed to accept this as justice for her daring to assert control over her own body. Her absence from the rest of the film is less a narrative gap and more a moral vacuum. She’s not a character—she’s a consequence.
Connie, once a shrieking symbol of family dysfunction, returns in this installment as a docile, remorseful sister begging to be let back into Michael’s good graces. What growth! She went from rebellious widow to handmaiden of patriarchal consolidation. The Corleone women are not allowed arcs. They are allowed reactions.
Meanwhile, the film’s emotional high points are reserved for brother-on-brother betrayal. Fredo, the black sheep with a heart and a brain half the size of Michael’s, is sacrificed not for a crime—but for being a weak link. And in this world, weakness is death. Compassion is death. Memory is a weapon. Michael hugs his brother on New Year’s Eve and then has him executed while staring at Lake Tahoe like he’s contemplating God, not orchestrating fratricide.
Yes, the cinematography is masterful. The script is spare and cutting. The score haunts you like a Sicilian ghost. But make no mistake: The Godfather Part II is a requiem for everything human that was left in this saga. It mythologizes the masculine wound and leaves the rest to die quietly in the shadows.
3.5 out of 5 oranges
(One for the filmmaking. One for De Niro’s silent rage. One for Keaton’s final scream of agency. Half a star for having the guts to kill the soul of the first film—if only to prove power doesn’t just corrupt, it obliterates.)
