An ambitious expansion of the Godfather saga from Francis Ford Coppola that goes both forward and backward in time. Al Pacino evokes the tragedy of a doomed Shakespearean king as his Michael Corleone begins to sink into the quagmire of his sins, while scenes of the original Don Corleone as a young man (Robert De Niro) reveal the relatively innocent way it all began. Also deepening is Gordon Willis’ legendary cinematography. Shadows lurk throughout the movie, as they do over the Corleones’ lives.
