- The early life and career of Vito Corleone in 1920s New York City is portrayed, while his son, Michael, expands and tightens his grip on the family crime syndicate.
- The continuing saga of the Corleone crime family tells the story of a young Vito Corleone growing up in Sicily and in 1910s New York; and follows Michael Corleone in the 1950s as he attempts to expand the family business into Las Vegas, Hollywood and Cuba.—Keith Loh <loh@sfu.ca>
- The life of Vito Corleone is shown as he becomes from a boy born in Sicily to one of the most respected mafia dons of New York while Micheal attempts to expand his business empire into Las Vegas, Florida and pre-revolution Cuba while facing his own personal problems trying to keep his collapsing marriage and relationship with his brother intact.—ahmetkozan
- The continuation of the Godfather saga with two focuses: the ongoing story of the Corleone family, and Michael in particular, and Vito Corleone's (Michael's father) backstory. Regarding the ongoing Michael Corleone story, it is about seven years since the events that concluded The Godfather. With the murders of the heads of the other four New York / New Jersey families, the Corleone family has unassailable control in New York. The move to Nevada went smoothly and Michael Corleone controls several hotels and casinos in the state. Frank Pentageli, the man who runs Michael's interests in New York, comes to Michael, asking if he can take out the Rosato Brothers as they are infringing on Pentageli's turf and business interests. However, the Rosatos are backed by Hyman Roth, a business partner of Michael's and a long- time ally of Michael's father, Vito Corleone, and Michael refuses. An assassination attempt is then carried out on Michael, in his own home. Michael investigates who is trying to kill him, and suspects that there is a traitor in his family. Meanwhile, Michael and Hyman Roth fly to Cuba to finalise some business deals there. The Cuban trip reveals all. In a story interwoven with the present day, we see the backstory to Vito Corleone. From how his parents and brother were murdered by a Don in their home town of Corleone in Sicily, to his escaping, as a boy, to New York, his adult life and his rise to Don Corleone.—grantss
- The childhood of Vito Corleone and his rise from a petty criminal to the most powerful don in New York City during the early 20th century is depicted, whilst his son Don Michael Corleone succumbs to power, greed, and ruthlessness, all for the sake of pride and keeping the Corleone family intact.—goddangwatir
- The film begins in 1901, in the town of Corleone, Sicily, at the funeral of young Vito's father, Antonio Andolini, who has been murdered for an insult to the local Mafia lord, Don Ciccio. During the procession, Vito's older brother is murdered because he swore revenge on the Don. Vito's mother goes to Ciccio to beg for mercy, but he refuses, knowing that nine-year-old Vito will seek revenge later in life. Vito's mother then takes Ciccio hostage at knife-point, allowing her son to escape, and Ciccio's men kill her. They search the town for the boy, but he is aided in his escape by the townspeople. Vito finds his way by ship to New York City, and at Ellis Island an immigration agent chooses Vito's hometown of Corleone as his surname, and he is registered as "Vito Corleone".
In 1958, Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), Godfather of the Corleone family, deals with various business and family problems during an elaborate party at his Lake Tahoe, Nevada compound to celebrate his son Anthony's First Communion. In his office, Michael meets with corrupt Nevada Senator Pat Geary (G. D. Spradlin) to discuss the price of the gaming licenses for the hotel/casinos the Family is buying. Geary, who makes his contempt for Michael and other Italian businessmen who are moving into his state to take advantage of gambling opportunities known, promises to make Michael's acquisition of his gaming license a difficult process. Michael ends his conversation with Geary when he refuses to pay the outrageous fee Geary demands, telling the senator he'll get nothing.
Michael also deals with his younger sister Connie (Talia Shire), who, although recently divorced from her second husband, is planning to marry a man named Merle Johnson (Troy Donahue) with no obvious means of support and of whom Michael disapproves. He also talks with Johnny Ola (Dominic Chianese), the right-hand man of Hebrew gangster Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg), who is supporting Michael's move into the gambling industry. Belatedly, Michael deals with Frank "Five Angels" Pentangeli (Michael V. Gazzo), a business associate who took over Corleone capo-regime Peter Clemenza's territory in New York City after his death, and now has problems with the Rosato Brothers, who are backed by Roth. Pentangeli leaves abruptly, after telling Michael "Your father did business with Hyman Roth, your father respected Hyman Roth, but your father never trusted Hyman Roth."
Later that night, Michael barely escapes an assassination attempt when his wife Kay (Diane Keaton) notices the bedroom window drapes are inexplicably open, which allows two unseen hit-men to spray the bedroom with bullets. The two hit-men are found dead having been killed by a "mole" within the compound. Afterwards, Michael tells his lawyer and adopted brother Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) that the hit was made with the help of someone close, and that he must leave, entrusting all his power to Tom to protect his family.
The action then switches to 1917 New York City, where the adult Vito Corleone (Robert De Nero) works in a neighborhood is controlled by a member of the "The Black Hand," Don Fanucci (Gastone Moschin), who extorts protection payments from local businesses. Vito's neighbor Clemenza (Bruno Kirby) asks him to hide a stash of guns for him, and later, to repay the favor, takes him to a fancy apartment where they commit their first felony together, stealing an elegant rug.
Flash-forward to Michael's time in 1958. Michael meets with Hyman Roth in Florida who tells Michael that he believes Frank Pentangeli was responsible for the assassination attempt. Traveling to Brooklyn, Michael lets Pentangeli know that Roth was actually behind it, and that Michael has a plan to deal with Roth, but he needs Frank to cooperate with the Rosato Brothers in order to put Roth off guard. When Pentangeli goes to meet with the Rosatos at a local bar, he is told "Michael Corleone says hello," as he is attacked from behind. Pentangeli is left for dead, and his bodyguard, Willie Cicci (Joe Spinell), is struck by a car.
In Nevada, Tom Hagen is called to a brothel run by Michael's older brother Fredo (John Cazale), where Senator Geary is implicated in the death of a prostitute, and Tom offers to take care of the problem in return for "friendship" between the Senator and the Corleone family. Meanwhile, Michael meets Roth in Havana, Cuba, in late 1958, at the time when dictator Fulgencio Batista is soliciting American investment. Michael tells Roth that the communists might win in Cuba, but Roth says that Michael has not delivered the 2 MM $ he promised for "friendship" with Roth.
Fredo, carrying the promised money, arrives in Havana and meets Michael. Michael mentions Hyman Roth and Johnny Ola to him. Michael confides to his brother that it was Roth who tried to kill him, and that he plans to try again. Michael assures Fredo that he has already made his move, and that "Hyman Roth will never see the New Year." Instead of turning over the money to Roth, Michael asks him who gave the order to have Frank Pentangeli killed. Roth avoids the question, instead speaking angrily of the murder of his old friend, Moe Greene, which Michael had orchestrated.
Michael has asked Fredo, who knows Havana well, to show Senator Geary and other important officials and businessmen a good time, during which Fredo pretends to not recognize Johnny Ola. Soon after, at a sex show, Fredo comments loudly that Johnny Ola told him about the place, contradicting what he told Michael twice earlier, that he didn't know Roth or Ola. Michael now realizes that the traitor is his own brother and dispatches his bodyguard to deal with Roth. Johnny Ola is strangled, but Roth, in a delicate state because of his heart condition, is taken to a hospital, where Michael's enforcer is shot trying to kill him. At Batista's New Year's Eve party, at the stroke of midnight, Michael grasps Fredo tightly by the head and kisses him: "I know it was you Fredo; you broke my heart." When guerrillas attack, the guests flee, but Fredo refuses to go with Michael, despite Michael's pleas that Fredo is still his brother and that it's the only way out.
In New York of 1917, Don Fanucci of the Black Hand is now aware of the partnership between Vito, Clemenza and Sal Tessio (John Aprea), and wants his share of their profits every week. Clemenza and Tessio agree to pay, but Vito is reluctant and asks his friends to leave everything in his hands so Fanucci will accept less and indeed, Vito manages to get Fanucci to take only one sixth of what he demanded ($100 out of $600). Vito murders Fanucci in the hallway and then rejoins his wife and four children on the stoops outside his apartment building where Vito tells the infant Michael that his father loves him very much.
Some weeks later in January 1959, Michael returns to his snow-covered Lake Tahoe compound, where Hagen tells him that Roth escaped Cuba after suffering a stroke and is recovering in Miami, that Michael's bodyguard is dead, and that Fredo is probably hiding in New York. Hagen also informs Michael that Kay (Diane Keaton) had a miscarriage while he was away. In 1920 New York, with Fanucci dead and no one else to take over the Black Hand, Vito earns the respect of the neighborhood, operating out of the storefront of his Genco Pura Olive Oil Company which he manages as well as give out "favors" to others in the community.
In Washington, D.C. of 1959, a Senate committee, of which Senator Geary is a member, is conducting an investigation into the Corleone family. They question disaffected "soldier" Willie Cicci, but he cannot implicate Michael, because he never received any direct orders from him. When Michael appears before the committee, Senator Geary makes a big show of supporting Italian-Americans and then excuses himself from the proceedings. During questioning, Michael denies all criminal allegations against him, from the murder of Sollozzo and Captain McCluskey back in 1946, and to his business status of operating several gambling casinos in Nevada. Michael makes a statement challenging the committee to produce a witness to corroborate the charges against him.
Frank Pentangeli, who also did not die in the attack by the Rosato Brothers, has made a deal with the FBI, and will testify against Michael. Michael's brother Fredo has been found and persuaded to return to Nevada, and in a private meeting he explains to Michael his betrayal: upset about being passed over to head the family in favor of Michael, he wants respect and his due. He helped Roth thinking there would be something in it for him. He also tells Michael that the Senate Committee's chief counsel is Roth's man. Michael then tells Fredo: "You're nothing to me now. Not a brother, not a friend, nothing", and privately instructs button man Al Neri (Richard Bright) that nothing is to happen to Fredo while their mother is still alive.
At the hearing in which Frank Pentangeli is to testify, Michael arrives accompanied by Pentangeli's brother, brought from Sicily, and whose presence causes Frank to recant his previous statements about Michael. When Pentangeli is pressed, he claims that he just told the FBI what they wanted to hear.
At a hotel room afterwards, Kay tries to leave Michael, taking their children with her. Michael at first tries to mollify her but loses his temper and hits her violently when she reveals to him that her recent "miscarriage" was actually an abortion to avoid providing another child into Michael's criminal inheritance. She also tells him that the baby was a boy, further infuriating Michael. In 1925, while visiting Sicily for a family vacation for the first time in 20 years, Vito Corleone is introduced to the elderly Don Ciccio as the man who imports their olive oil to America. When Ciccio asks Vito who his father was, Vito says, "My father's name is Antonio Andolini!", cutting the old man's stomach open with a knife, avenging the death of his father, mother, and brother. As they make their escape from Ciccio's compound and his men, Don Tomasello is shot in the leg by one of Ciccio's bodyguards... the injury gives him a permanent limp.
In April 1959, Carmella Corleone (Morgana King), Vito's widow and the mother of his children, dies, and the whole Corleone family is reunited for her funeral. Michael still shuns Fredo, who is miserable, but relents when Connie implores him to. Michael and Fredo embrace, but at the same time Michael signals to his capo that Fredo's protection from harm, in effect while their mother lived, has now run out.
Michael, Tom Hagen, and Rocco Lampone discuss their final dealings with Hyman Roth, who has been unsuccessfully seeking asylum from various countries, and was even refused entry to Israel as a returned Hebrew. Michael rejects Hagen's advice that the Corleone family's position is secure, and killing Roth and the Rosato brothers for revenge is an unnecessary risk. Later, Hagen pays a visit to the imprisoned Frank Pentangeli on a military base and suggests that he take his own life, in the manner of unsuccessful ancient Roman conspirators who, in return, were promised that their families would be taken care of after their suicide. With the connivance of Connie, Kay visits her children, but cannot bear to leave them and stays too long. When Michael arrives, he coldly closes the door in her face.
The Godfather Part II reaches its climax in a montage of assassinations and death, reminiscent of the end of The Godfather: As he arrives at an airport to be taken into custody, Hyman Roth is killed by Rocco Lampone disguised as a journalist, who himself is immediately shot dead by Roth's bodyguards. On the military base, Frank Pentangeli is found dead, having followed Hagen's instructions and committed suicide in his bathtub. Finally, Fredo is murdered by Al Neri while they are fishing on Lake Tahoe - while Fredo is saying a Hail Mary to help catch a fish.
The penultimate scene takes place in 1941, and the Corleone family is preparing a surprise birthday party for their father Vito. Sonny (James Caan) introduces Carlo Rizzi (Gianni Russo), Connie's future husband and betrayer of Sonny, to his family. They all talk about the recent attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, and Michael shocks everybody by announcing that he has just enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. Sonny ridicules Michael's choice, and Tom Hagen mentions how his father has great expectations for Michael. Fredo is the only one who supports his brother's decision. Sal Tessio comes in with the cake for the party, and when Vito arrives, all but Michael leaves the room to greet him.
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