Francis Ford Coppola, 1972.
A review seems almost redundant for this movie - a bit like writing a review of the Mona Lisa, or the Eiffel Tower - established masterpieces!
Ford Coppola's first real movie, Al Pacino's first real movie, Brando's last real movie, a movie that was to have been directed by Sergio Leone...a milestone in many ways.
The performances, and indeed many of the scenes, have entered so fully into the collective iconography of Hollywood viewers that we might find ourselves lost without them as points of cinematic/visual reference.
Brando is a master in this movie, and dominates scene after scene - impossible to imagine a performer whose status alone could convey the authority of the role of Don Vito Corleone(the first scene establishes this even before Brando speaks - MASTERFUL).
Pacino is the one to watch - his character development as Michael Corleone in this movie alone is one of cinema's/Pacino's great legacies (and it continues through the 2 sequels). Not bad for a first (real) movie!
James Caan, Robert DuVall, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, and many others add their finger and footprints to a memorable story about: love, death, loyalty, morality, life...the movie is not an easy view - there is violence (tho, as we have become accustomed to noting, not as graphic as one would find these days), and the nature of the plot is such that at least one repeated viewing would be enlightening for the novice viewer.
I also love the pace of the movie - not squashed into a commercial time frame, but with each scene developing its own rhythm and momentum.
Perhaps another case of a movie you have to see, simply to have experienced it and gained another perspective on Life...
Meanwhile, my appetite has been more than whetted in readiness for Part 2.
10/10.
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