Movie lovers are full of praise for the sequel to a Hollywood classic, calling one scene in particular a stroke of “genius.”
The Godfather II came as a follow-up to the revered cinematic feature, The Godfather, which starred Marlon Brando and Al Pacino. The latter would go on to star in the two follow-ups, with fans reserving their praise for a moment towards the end of the second film.
A post to Reddit has since seen cinema lovers praise the end of the flick, which was released just two years after the first installment in the trilogy.
Robert De Niro joined the cast, while familiar faces Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, and Talia Shire returned to the series. A moment shared with Duvall, Shire, Pacino, and JAmes Caan has since been praised.
One user posted a screenshot of the fiilms, with a side-by-side comparison showing a “genius” before and after.
The post reads: “Genius – End of Godfather 2. Sonny in the frame has all the family around him and pay attention to where hes seated. Michael in the end is all alone and look at the backdrop to where Sonny was seated.”
Fans were quick to agree with the appraisal of the scene, calling it a masterstroke in filmmaking which hammers home the point of the sequel.
One user wrote: “It’s powerful on many levels. Shows Michael is the outcast, the one that didn’t fit and was purposefully rebeling against the family. That Sonny was the obvious follower of Vito. The one meant to be the next don. He fills the various familial roles absent his father (head of the table).
“But it also shows how Michael’s world also changed around him. Basically, everyone in the first shot is either dead or severely estranged from Michael by the end. Tom and Connie are the only remaining ones but he burns both bridges by the end.
“So just a great simple shot that conveys so much. The world he didn’t want is now his. In the process he’s lost his entire family which was the core point of the enterprise in the first place. And at a certain point, Michael’s independence was also lost, he’s become another greedy mafiosi. Not dissimilar to the Black Hand (blanking on the character’s name – the mafioso in Little Italy in the Vito flashbacks).”
Another user suggested the scene shows a “huge transformation” for the lead character, Michael Corleone, portrayed by Al Pacino.
The user wrote: “Whenever I watch this scene there’s sort of a hindsight thing going on. When you first watch godfather Michael seems to have this huge transformation throughout the movie but after this scene I think to myself ‘oh, he was much further along than I thought.'”
A third suggested how the scene could have been improved, suggesting a cast member from the first film could have reappeared. They wrote: “I wish Marlon Brando could have made an appearence but maybe less is more in this case.”
Another user disagreed, adding: “Godfather 1 belonged to Brando. Godfather 2 was all De Niro’s. It’s because they both gave such iconic performances in their respective films that I think keeping Vito off screen worked so well.”