Review – The Godfather Legacy

Rating:  4.  The History Channel’s two-hour documentary looks at how the groundbreaking film “The Godfather” and its two sequels transcended Hollywood, transformed the American psyche, and even influenced real-life organized crime,.  This well-received retrospective looks back at the classic Hollywood mobster saga on the 40th anniversary of it’s debut.Variety found it uneven, saying “Rather appropriately, “The Godfather Legacy” — a History documentary about the acclaimed movies — starts out strong, before withering a bit in the final third” but nevertheless noted that the show is “painstakingly researched” and concludes that the filmmaker “makes an offering you shouldn’t refuse.”

Dallas-Ft. Worth Star-Telegram had good words, saying it is “teeming with classic anecdotes from cast members, archival behind-the-scenes footage and analysis from historians, film scholars and even a real-life former Mafia member”.  They add “Four decades after the March 1972 release of The Godfather, Coppola and cast members such as Pacino, Caan and Talia Shire marvel at how enduring and endearing this film is.”

Orlando Sentinel thinks it is a “…fine documentary about “The Godfather,” the film that made an offer filmgoers couldn’t refuse”.

Chicago Tribune applauds the effort, saying “The Godfather Legacy relates how the movie that no one wanted to make ultimately emerged as “one of the greatest movies ever made”.

Miami Herald fondly agrees, citing the doc “….goes way beyond gossip from the set to assess the films’ cultural impact at a time when America was trying to emerge from the muck of Watergate and Vietnam”.

UPI.com liked the how the show helped “explain how these powerful mobsters, with their moral ambiguity and human flaws, resonated with audiences and impacted popular culture”.

LA Times was similarly impressed on how the trilogy “continues to have an effect on the American psyche.” This special investigates the “characters that were metaphors for an era of turmoil”.