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Film Review of The Offer
The script of Paramount’s limited series The Offer, the behind-the-scenes story of the making of the film classic The Godfather, must have looked like the goose that laid the golden egg to any film producer worth her salt. It has everything. The Offer tells the story of the conception and production of one of the most popular and critically acclaimed all-time classic American films, The Godfather, a production that is on nearly every list of the world’s best movies, involves real-life gangsters, the lives of the actors involved in the production, and everything in between.
One of the script’s major subplot deals with the real-life gangster problems between producer Al Ruddy (Miles Teller) and mafioso Joe Colombo (Giovanni Ribisi), who initially objected to the making of the film because he believed it disparaged Italian Americans. Rolled into that interesting gangster/show-biz dynamic is the man/icon who straddled the line between those two worlds, Frank Sinatra (Frank John Hughes), who reportedly hated Mario Puzo’s novel and the idea of a subsequent movie so much that he reportedly bullied singer Vic Damone (Michael Landes) into giving up the role of Johnny Fontane (Puzo’s alleged characterization of Sinatra). Roll all this up and flip it over and bing, you have a double—no, a triple—audience-garnering whammy.
Then, on top of all this, when The Offer gets into the actual production and filming of The Godfather, the audience is treated to a movie within a movie; they are able to see The Godfather once again—from a different angle. The actors are incredibly—sometimes eerily—matched to their real-life counterparts. Justin Chambers, who plays Marlon Brando, nails not only the famous actor’s delivery, but the posture, stance, and demeanor of the icon. His performance is more than just an imitation or an impression—or, more importantly, a parody. It is pure Brando. The same is true of Anthony Ippolito, (Al Pacino), who not only nails Pacino’s signature nasal drawl, but—particularly during the scene in Louie’s restaurant where Michael murders Sollozzo—his expression of murderous intensity is dead-on accurate. Dan Fogler’s portrayal of Francis Ford Coppola is also perfectly drawn and measured.
Scenes from the original film, like the Sollozzo shooting, are immaculately reproduced, while sets and costumes (see Carlo’s obnoxious orange suit during the street scene when Sonny beats him up) are also painstaking recreated. Together these familiar signposts, these iconic images from a movie we all know and revere, welcome the viewer into a well-known—and well-worn—cinematic world, but this time with the promise of more—more gossip, more dirt, more reality (maybe), and more gangsters. It’s déjà vu as a sequel. It can’t lose.
The Offer delivers on most of these promises. Viewers learn exactly what the production team used for the scene with the horse’s head, how Ruddy and Coppola landed Brando for the part of Don Corleone, and how powerhouse producer Robert Evans (Matthew Goode) managed to land Pacino for the role of Michael Corleone. While the appeal of this series is partly historical, part Hollywood gossip, and part Mafia insider dirt, it is, finally, a narrative film in its own right, and as such, delivers less than it might have.
The credits of The Offer state that the series is based on the recollections of producer Al Ruddy, a description that leaves no little latitude for poetic license. In fact, some disputes have arisen over the veracity of some scenes. In an interview for The San Francisco Chronicle, The Offer screenwriter Michael Tolkin admits that the murder of Crazy Joe Gallo took place after the release of The Godfather, not during production, as depicted in the movie, and that character Barry Lapidus (Colin Hanks) was not a real person, but in fact, an amalgam of several Paramount executives. Tolkin talks about the importance of weaving the elements of Ruddy’s recollections and the public perception of the film into a compelling story, sometimes at the expense of the truth. But a great part of this production’s appeal is its supposed grounding in reality, which is why photographs and histories of the actual people involved, including Ruddy, Bettye McCartt (Juno Temple) and others—a la American Graffiti or Animal House—are rolled at the conclusion of the series.
That being said, overlooking its real-life appeal and appraising The Offer as simply narrative fiction, just another movie, is difficult. It is a compelling story. Most of the acting, despite and in addition to imitations of the actual people, is superb, although looking beyond Anthony Ippolito’s Pacinoesque mannerisms into the actual performance is tough. This is no criticism of Ippolito’s performance; his Pacino has to fit within the parameters of audience expectations, otherwise the film wouldn’t work.
I was not particularly impressed with Miles Teller’s performance as Ruddy. While the character is obviously closed-off and emotionally constipated in his dealings, Teller’s aloofness is so absolute, he makes Ruddy seem almost unreachable. Even in scenes with his lover Francoise, he never seems to become fully human, to show the audience a glimpse of his inner life. His friendship with Joe Colombo seems to thaw him a little, especially near the end of the series, but Ruddy seems a little too guarded to be sympathetic.
On the flip side, Matthew Goode’s flamboyant depiction of Robert Evans at times teeters precariously close to being over the top but never quite goes over. Whether the real Robert Evans talked like a side-show huckster or a West Coast Hugh Hefner is hard to say, but it is a hell of a lot of fun watching this version of Robert Evans—true to life or not.
In an episode of another gangster epic The Sopranos, Silvio (Steve Van Zandt), one of the Soprano family capos, entertains the other mobsters with his imitation of Michael Corleone doing the “I tried to get out, but they kept pulling me back in” line from Godfather III. Silvio and Tony Soprano and the rest of that gang—like most of the rest of us—are inextricably caught up in The Godfather epic. The Sopranos are probably a bit more heavily invested in that world than the average viewer. But still, like Sil, all of us have found that the film industry, through its own mythologization, has, with the help of that rather perverse appeal that the Mafia holds over us all, pulled us back in just one more time.