Editorials > Three nitpicky and irrelevant reasons The Godfather Part II is worse than its predecessor

We can discuss the relative worth of an epic, self-contained family drama versus two parallel, thematically pregnant narratives until the cows come home. We can argue over whether Michael’s decision to kill Carlo and the heads of the other four families at the end of the first Godfather was sufficient in showing his descent into evil, or whether the murder of his brother was necessary to show just how far he’d fallen. We can analyze the first Godfather in comparison to the second and move back and forth, attempting to determine what was better – but we won’t, because, in the end, both films are so damn good that defining one as better than the other is akin to picking favorites amongst one’s children.

As it stands, the only way to differentiate between the two, quality-wise, is to nitpick. Usually, to suggest nitpicking a film as great as The Godfather II might seem unnecessary and stupid – probably because it is. Still, nitpicking is the only way I can see to determine a somewhat superior film in my eyes, and so nitpicking it shall be.

The Dead Assassins plot hole

After the attempt on his life at the beginning of the film, Michael correctly predicts that his would-be assassins will be dead before he can question them. He smells a rat – a rat on the inside who would not only reveal details about his internal security, but who would personally kill the failed assassins just to keep his identity a secret. There’s only one problem – this guy, as far as I can tell, doesn’t exist.

We later find out that Fredo, Michael’s brother, betrayed him and told Johnny Ola some specifics about Michael’s security detail. Nobody else; just Fredo. Does this mean, then, that we are supposed to believe that wimpy, pitiful Fredo was the man who killed the assassins? Fredo, of all people? We know that the person who killed the assassins must have been inside the Corleone villa and could not have possibly escaped once gunshots were heard, and if Fredo is the only rat in the family, then Fredo, if only through process of elimination, must have been the one to pull the trigger on the assassins.

But wait a minute; the Godfather films have a greater respect for character than that. There’s no way in hell that a character as weak and apologetic as Fredo could have the balls, ruthlessness, or raw skill necessary to gun down two professional killers just in order to keep his identity a secret. Additionally, we later find out (through an overheard phone call between Fredo and Johnny Ola) that Fredo didn’t even know that Ola was planning to kill Michael; Fredo was simply being thoughtless, not evil, when he told Ola about Michael’s security setup.

Some Godfather fans have postulated that there was actually a second traitor, and that Rocco (Michael’s bodyguard, who kills Hyman Roth at the end of the film) might be this missing assassin. It’s theorized that Rocco  was in cahoots with Ola from the beginning, cold-bloodedly killed the assassins after the botched hit, and then began to repent his actions and seek forgiveness. At the end of the film, Rocco takes the Roth hit knowing that he will be killed in the process, ostensibly in an effort to achieve some sort forgiveness for betraying Michael.

This makes precisely zero sense.

Had Rocco actually been a traitor, Michael would have known it almost immediately given their close proximity to one another. Michael is almost supernaturally talented at reading people – if Rocco was so tormented by guilt after the attempt on Michael’s life that he was willing to walk into a hail of gunfire just to make up for his betrayal, wouldn’t Michael have picked up on this? Rocco couldn’t have been such a great liar that he managed to keep his guilt and complicity hidden from Michael Goddamned Corleone, of all people.

As it stands, there is no explanation for who killed the two assassins on the Corleone estate at the beginning of the film. It couldn’t have been Fredo, it obviously wasn’t Rocco; they simply tripped, fell into a plot hole, and died.

The Hyman Roth plot hole

There are two different perspectives this plot hole can be viewed from, and neither of them make any sense.

Firstly, if Hyman Roth told the Rosato brothers to almost kill Frankie Pentangeli, and assuming he told the hitmen to use the words, "Michael Corleone says hello," how could Roth have known that a cop would come by and interrupt the assassination attempt?

Or, alternately, if Roth had told the Rosato brothers to kill Pentangeli outright, then why does the hitman say, “Michael Corleone says hello,” and why does Tom Hagen later say that “Roth played this one beautifully?”

Roth, we later find out, gained more from having Frank Pentangeli think that Michael Corleone ordered the hit on him than from actually killing him. Having heard his would-be assassin yell Michael’s name right before throwing piano wire around his neck, Pentangeli – after a random policeman walks in and sends the assassins scurrying – hates Michael enough to go straight to the FBI and spill his guts. If we’re looking at the plot hole from the first perspective, then it logically follows that nearly everything which occurred on the day of Pentangeli’s almost-assassination was planned to a T in order to convince Frankie that Michael wanted him dead. But how could Roth’s men have possibly known that a lone, streetwalking cop would just happen to walk into the same bar, just a few seconds after the hitman yelled Michael’s name?

One might assume that the cop was not a cop at all, but another Rosato lackey merely dressed up as a cop (not unlike how Al Neri disguised himself at the end of the first film). Yet, if this is the case, then why does the cop get into a violent shootout with the Rosato soldiers as they leave? Roth may have been eager to convince Pentangeli that the hit was for real, but he couldn’t have been so eager that he’d outright tell his men to start shooting at each other in broad daylight.

Hell, even if the cop was really a cop, and if the Rosatos really did time their attack on Frank so that the cop would walk in a few seconds before Frankie would actually die (maybe that particular cop always showed up at that bar at a set time every day), then why do they immediately run out and allow themselves to be shot at? If they were expecting the cop, wouldn’t they have done something to disarm him?

If Roth wanted Frank Pentangeli’s murder to fail, he was either really damn lucky or really damn psychic that things turned out the way they did.

But, let’s say he didn’t want the assassination to fail. Let’s say Roth wanted the Rosato brothers to actually kill Pentangeli. Why, then, would he tell the Rosatos’ hitman to use the phrase, “Michael Corleone says hello”? Telling Pentangeli a fake name before his death wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference! Also, wouldn’t the Rosatos and their henchmen know that Roth, and not Corleone, ordered the hit? In that case, why have their hitman yell such a thing?

Many Godfather fans will cite the fact that Danny Aiello, who played the name-dropping thug, simply adlibbed the line on the day of shooting and Coppola just decided to keep it. This, they say, is evidence that Roth didn’t tell the Rosatos to use the line, and that Roth actually wanted Pentangeli dead, and that the Rosatos evidently employ one of the most impulsive, loudmouthed, and ill-informed henchmen in the entirety of the Italian Mafia. But if Roth didn’t want Pentangeli to live, then why do we later hear Tom Hagen say that “Roth played this one beautifully,” implying that Roth really did mastermind the whole failed assassination? Roth really has no reason to kill Pentangeli outright – killing them so soon after an attempt on Michael’s life would simply draw unneeded attention to him, thus immediately informing Michael as to who gave the Rosatos the go-ahead, and why.

For Roth, murdering Pentangeli serves no purpose, so the entire failed hit must have been orchestrated. Except, it’s too orchestrated. Or, maybe, not orchestrated enough.

Or maybe it’s just a big, niggling goddamn script flaw.

The weakest-looking kill in Godfather history

In a series known for its grotesque, yet beautifully shot death scenes, the murder of Johnny Ola is unquestionably the most mediocre scene of violence in the entire Godfather trilogy (closely followed by James Caan’s hilariously obvious fake punch in the first film).

Ostensibly, Michael’s bodyguard strangles Ola to death with a clothes hanger. Pretty boring in theory, but hey –  if anyone can make a nonabortive death-by-clothes-hanger look good, Coppla can.

Or at least, that’s what you’d think.

At first, everything seems to be going well: Michael’s bodyguard gets the hanger around Ola’s neck and pulls him back near the open patio door. The curtains waft in the breeze, Johnny’s head and neck obscured by the floating fabric. Suddenly, however, Michael’s bodyguard moves forward and, as Ola struggles, the left side of the hanger moves about four or five inches away from Ola’s neck. Now, it appears that Ola isn’t really getting strangled so much as he’s getting mildly irritated; it doesn’t look like the assassin is putting any real pressure on the hanger, and the more Ola struggles, the farther it moves down his body.

By the end of the excruciatingly long scene, Michael’s bodyguard doesn’t look like he’s trying to strangle Johnny Ola so much as it looks like he’s trying to execute the Heimlich maneuver. The left side of the hanger is mostly positioned across Ola’s chest, of all places, yet Ola still struggles and gurgles as if his trachea were collapsing. Sonny’s crappy punch in The Godfather only lasted an eighth of a second; Ola’s death lasts a quarter of a minute, and looks just as bad.