Word: pacino
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Corleone. Yet superb as he is, Brando is merely reclaiming a position already staked out. In some ways more exciting are the clutch of little-known younger performers who burst forth in the film. Of these, none is more compelling than a short, brooding coil of tension named Al Pacino...
...Pacino plays Michael, the Godfather's favorite son and eventual heir. It may well be the most difficult role of the film. Michael begins as a war hero and college boy who insists on retaining an identity separate from the Corleone "business." He ends as a remorseless Don who conducts family affairs with brutal efficiency. This development is only implicit in the script, never stated outright. Pacino carries it off with exceptional intelligence and energy. The triumph of his performance is that it conveys Michael's youthful sensitivity without ever losing an edge of animal menace...
...growth of Michael (and Al Pacino is startlingly good in the role) is what gives the film its shape. Emerging a hero from World War II, graduating from Dartmouth with honors in math, he goes straight into Ivy Leavue blase--even picking up a cultivated, long-legged blonde from New Hampshire. Only when Papa Corleone is nearly killed in gangline fire does the son test his cunning and strength in one-to-one, life-or-death arenas. Michael turns to crime. His rationale: all twentieth-century life is political, politics is just power-playing, and one mode of warfare...
...crucial roles of the Godfather's sons, such glamorous candidates as Robert Redford, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson were ruled out in favor of lesser-known actors with a tougher, more authentic look: Al Pacino as Michael, the Ivy-educated son who succeeds the Godfather; James Caan as the lusty Sonny, the oldest son whose hot temper betrays him; Robert Duvall as the adopted son Tom Hagen, the lawyer who be comes the family's consigliere; John Cazale as Fredo, the timid, feckless son who is given a Las Vegas casino to play with. For the role...
Schatzberg is an adequate if academic craftsman, but he has spent so much time fussing over the proper visual atmosphere that Needle Park comes out looking more deliberately grubby than spontaneously realistic. Plainly, however, he took a good deal of trouble with his performers. Al Pacino, a New York stage actor making his movie debut, is good, although he has yet to scale down his stage mannerisms to the closer dimensions of films. Kitty Winn performs with meticulous naturalism, and there is a gallery of strong secondary performances, including a nice cameo by Alan Vint as a tough...