‘The Godfather Coda’ Blu-ray Review: Dramatic Improvement over ‘Godfather III’

Five-time Oscar winner Francis Ford Coppola enjoys repairing his movies. So far he’s re-cut Apocalypse Now (1979) on two separate occasions, The Cotton Club (1984) once, and now he’s looking to repair The Godfather III (1990), a movie no one was happy with, most especially him.

Although it would go on to earn seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Director, Godfather III seemed cursed from the word go. Coppola entered the project grudgingly. He was broke and felt his only way out was to accept Paramount’s standing offer to continue the Corleone family saga, something he considered concluded after Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) damned himself by killing his own brother.

Then Paramount refused Robert Duvall’s price, so Corleone family consigliore Tom Hagen had to be written out of the script. He was supposed to be the heart of the story. Instead of re-casting the role, he was replaced with George Hamilton, who plays family attorney B.J. Harrison and always looks a little out of place because he looks like George Hamilton and is only there to deliver exposition.

Then Wynona Ryder dropped out as Mary Corleone, Michael’s grown daughter, which led Coppola to make the fateful decision to recast the part with his then-19-year-old daughter Sofia, who has grown into a respected director, but was way too young and inexperienced for the role.

At the time, the critics brutalized (oftentimes cruelly) both Coppolas over this decision, and as much as a contrarian like myself would like to stick up for Sofia’s performance, it really is hard to watch.

Worst of all, at least according to Coppola, he and co-screenwriter, the late Mario Puzo, felt rushed. Paramount demanded a Christmas release, refused him more time, and Coppola always felt that with a few more months the movie could have been improved, especially in the editing room.

Thirty-years later, and again just in time for Christmas, Paramount gave Coppola a second kick at the cat, and the re-cut is now available on Blu-ray, with the running-time cut by five minutes and the movie’s title increased by seven words: “Mario Puzo’s The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone.

Unlike most people, including my pretty wife, I never hated Godfather III.  It certainly didn’t live up to its predecessors — two pieces of perfection that  won inarguable Best Picture Oscars. I saw Part III as a good movie, that was great in parts. I also saw what Coppola did —  a much better movie in there somewhere.

So  I’m happy to report, Coppola has extracted a better movie. Godfather Coda is still flawed, still no Godfather I or II, but Coda is also no cash-in. Unlike most special editions, and unrated editions, and directors cuts, Coda is not a cynical money-grab to fool you into buying the same movie again.

Apocalypse Now: Redux is a good example of an unnecessary re-cut that’s longer but not better. Coppola realized this, which is why he just released Apocalypse Now: Final Cut, which I might watch this weekend — even though the original is freakin’ perfect.

Just like Blade Runner (1982) and Touch of Evil (1958), those rarities that actually improve after a re-cut, so too does Godfather Coda. It’s well worth a look.

Except for the very beginning and very end, the changes are subtle. Gone is the opening, the flashback to Godfather II where we see Michael having just lost his soul with Fredo’s murder. Gone is that protracted and dull scene that followed, the one where Michael receives an award from the Catholic Church.

Instead, Coppola drops us right into the plot, a meeting between Michael and Archbishop Gilday (Donal Donnelly). Michael wants to wash away his sins and go into legitimate business. For a $600 million deposit into the Vatican Bank, which will help cover up some “accounting errors,” Gilday tells Michael the Church can make him legitimate overnight (and wealthier) with controlling interest in Immobliiare, a multinational corporation controlled by the Church.

Originally, we had to wait 35 to 40 whole minutes to get to this important scene.

So boom, the story has begun, and now we cut to Michael writing a longing and lonely letter to his children, telling them they are all that mean anything to him. Then we cut to the family celebration that opened the original cut — which, for a number of reasons, works so much better.

First off, the dull ceremony where Michael receives the church award is gone, and we’re taken right into the after-party, which plays like gangbusters because 1) we now know what the story and stakes are, which means that  2) we’re now ready to be reunited with the cast, and most importantly, 3) Andy Garcia’s Vincent Corleone shows up almost immediately.

Vincent’s early entrance puts him right where he belongs, as central to the plot, which charges up the rest of the movie. You no longer wonder why we’re spending so much time with the guy.

Little editing changes like this, something as seemingly simple as when you choose to  introduce a character, can change everything. So within the first 15 or so minutes, we now know everything we need to. We know Michael is looking to become legitimate, looking to make amends with his children and his ex-wife Kay (Diane Keaton). We know he’s gotten into bed with a shady Archbishop and unwisely paid him in advance. We know Michael has taken the hot-headed Vincent (Garcia is fabulous in this role) under his wing.

What we have here is a focused movie, which means we’re ready to see how it plays out, to see if Michael can pull it off.

Another big change removes the scene where Connie (Talia Shire) tells Vincent to kill Joey Zasa (a miscast Joe Mantegna). This cut was another great choice. Instead of knowing what’s about to happen, we jump into a marvelous set-piece staged in Little Italy and it unfolds as a total surprise, and later, because an infirmed Michael is angry about it, we learn Connie signed off.

My memory is not sharp enough to relay all the other changes. Coppola apparently made more than 350 of them, including music cues. But I’ve noted the biggies (and won’t spoil the ending, which is also an improvement). The rest of the changes are likely the trimming of a few frames here and there, a close-up added here, a wide shot added there. Some of Sofia’s most awkward line readings have been removed, as has a shot of the World Trade Center.

I could be wrong, but the movie looked better, which meant it felt better to watch. Cinematographer Gordon Willis returned for Part III. But in this re-cut the picture looks sharper. More suited to its timeframe, which is 1979.

Overall, though, the story is sharply focused, and Pacino’s performance feel less over-the-top. For the first time — and I’ve seen Godfather III at least a half-dozen times — there are glimmers of the old Michael Corleone, which allowed me, again for the first time, to empathize with this character, to feel his despair over the fate of his soul and his regrets. Michael’s confession scene was always great. Here’s it’s even more devastating.

My wife, who dislikes Godfather III so much she only watched it again for my sake, was very pleased with this version. “That’s the first I ever cared about what’s going,” she said as soon as it was over.

So a pretty good movie has been reborn into a really good movie, and now that we have Coda, there’s no reason to bother with Part III ever again. 

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