SOURCE: "The Grandfather," in New York, Vol. 24, No. 1, January 7, 1991, pp. 57, 64-5.

In the following review, Denby complains, "The Godfather III has its moments, but I think one can state as a principle that a man's desire to withdraw from life cannot serve as the center of an epic drama (not, that is, without Shakespeare's poetry)."

For much of its two-hour-and-forty-minute length, I waited for The Godfather Part III to explode, and for a long time it only wheezed. The movie certainly isn't boring, but much of it is heavy-spirited and glum, as if the Mafia and the Godfather movies themselves had become unspeakably important facts of American life, permitting neither levity nor excitement. Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), only about 60 but old in body and spirit, sets the tone. The hollow-eyed Pacino performs brilliantly, but he appears to be sinking within himself, and for a long time the movie...