Why Did The Other Families Not Retaliate? | The Godfather Explained

[Laughter] in francis ford coppola's the godfather we followed the aging dawn of the powerful new york italian american crime family vito corleone attempting to navigate the treacherous world of the mob vito is an intelligent wise don with a lot of foresight and cunning he is the most powerful don in new york after having wrestled power away from don giuseppi mariposa during the olive world war after which new york's territories were carved out into five separate families vito's wisdom and intellect is complemented by the sharpness and loyalty of his two kappa regimes tessier and clemenza and the brutality of his enforcer luca brasi and the fiery fury of his son sonny next in line to the throne after his father the korean crime family is enjoying prosperity and has been enjoying peace for a number of years however everything comes crashing down when salazar comes to visit known as the turk this individual comes to don corleone with a proposal whereby the coryons would benefit from entering the drug trade with veto's political and police connections keeping salazo out of trouble with the law however as he feels that drugs are bad for business and he may lose political support by getting involved in this trade vito respectfully turns down the turks offer but not before sunny makes a comment which suggests he's a lot more in favor of the deal than his father is using this to his advantage salazzo has veto's legendary enforcer luca brasi killed and puts out a hit on vita corleone with his plan being to strong-arm soni into accepting his deal unbeknownst to the coreleons the turk not only had the backing of the rival tatalya family which he made clear to vito but also the backing of the far more powerful don barazzini in fact the turk is little more than a pawn in barzini's master plan to take over the coreleon's operations and cement himself as the most powerful dawn of the five families ambrazini's plan pretty much works vito is shot but not killed and the coreleons break mob protocol by having the civilian michael corleone murder not just salazar but a police captain which puts an unreal amount of media scrutiny and pressure from the law on the mob the other families used this as an excuse to launch a full-scale war against the corleones who are spearheaded by sunny whilst vito is recovering sunny holds his own but is murdered after barzini employs some slimy tactics and michael corleone takes his place as head of the family with his aging father now recovered acting as his advisor years before he took over and after killing solotso michael was forced to flee to sicily for his life and in order to organize his safe return vita called an end to the war and promised the heads of the other families that he would not be the one to break the peace michael returns and goes to work for his father and the corleones take a constant battering from the other families as mount green puts it the corleones are getting chased out of new york by barzini and other families capos tessier and clemenza are frustrated that they are losing ground to barzini and other families but michael tells them to be patient and wait the apparent weakness of the coreleons even prompts tessio to abandon ship and betray the family hatching a plan with barzini to kill michael unbeknownst to all except a precious few don vito corleone and michael corleone were hatching a plan of their own an incredibly dangerous and ambitious one which the book tells us took years to put together in fact the idea was initially sunny corleone's back in the five family war so you could say the plan was almost a decade in the making if i've got my calculations right as we know the assault the coreleons face and take are all part of their plan to look weak so they can set a trap and during the baptism of michael's nephew a while after the death of don vito the corollons spring with that trap the heads of all four rival families barzini tatalia coreno and stretchy are all taken out all simultaneously in a shocking turn of events that leaves characters and the audience stunned stunned at the sheer audacity and ruthlessness of the former college boy michael corleone as he asserts himself and proves himself as the new dawn of the coryon family having put the corleones back on the map with this unprecedented move michael avenges his wife his brother the attack on his father the attacks against the corleones everything he settles all family business in one sweet swoop in an event dubbed the baptism of fire and this is pretty much where the first film ends with michael having completed his arc from college educated marine who doesn't want anything to do with the family business to cold and calculating mafia don the second film continues michael's storyline about two or three years later with michael surviving an assassination attempt in his lake tahoe mansion and attempting to find out who it was but there does seem to be something missing here in the story something glossed over skipped past perhaps a question arises after the baptism of fire and that question is what happened after the baptism of fire are we expected to assume that michael absorbed the entirety of the mafia in new york that he took control of all five families and then moved out to nevada to expand his empire there how can that be would the other families not have retaliated would the new leaders of each family not seek vengeance against the corleones for their actions and continue the five family rule why would simply killing the head of a family nullify the entire criminal organization look at what happened when an assassination attempt was made against veto sunny launched an entire war against five families so why should we believe that the titalias the barzinis the stratches and the cuenos wouldn't do the same so let's discuss this before we continue please subscribe to the channel if you haven't already done so and if you have click the notification button so you don't miss out when a new video is released you can also support the channel on patreon where you can get bonuses like early access to videos and your name in my videos so this is a question i see a lot it's come up when people discuss the godfather it comes up in the comment section in my videos and it's a legitimate question it's all well and good having a hollywood ending where you have michael vanquish all of his enemies but when you think about it logically it doesn't really add up and the other family surely must have retaliated usually in such instances where movies have a gaping hole in them you turn to the novel they're based on but in this case mario proves the godfather is not much help for two reasons first of all the baptism of fire is much more different in the book because only don barazzini and philip italia are taken out not the heads of all four families that's a major difference though i suppose you could say the point still stands and the barzinis and tatalyas should have been expected to seek revenge but again the book ain't much help because it more or less ends with the first movie ends after michael settles all family business the stuff that happens in the second film in michael's timeline havana hyman roth fredo's betrayal none of that happens in the book and with the novel pretty much ending with the film dead we don't get too much answers from mario puzo so let's think this through let's say you're someone high up in the barzini family a capo or underboss or something business is good you've got a great income from the drugs trade and thanks to the new political connections your boss don barzini has your men avoid jail time for dealing in drugs your turf is expanding mainly onto the corleones territories as they don't have the muscle they once did and there hasn't been bloodshed and wars since sonny corleone was gunned down years ago you hear that the ageing frail but cunning don corleone has died and his family quite hilariously has been taken over not by the sharp tecio or the strong clemenza but by a former college boy michael you don't know much about this guy except that he fought in world war ii but so what mob was on another level you have to get right up close to a gun and bada bing however your boss knows michael is the one who gunned down solazo and a police captain he's a wild card who might do something stupid to get revenge for the weakening of the coleons so plans are made to take him out men from the corleone side like tessio switch sides everything lines up perfectly for don brazzini to swallow the college boy up whole until shockingly tragically unbelievably the head of each four family including your own are taken out at the same time in an undeniable master stroke the untouchable barzini lays dead on a sidewalk in a pool of his own blood along with numerous other men who were also unkillable let's not forget the book does tell us it wasn't just the heads who were taken out but top men in the families also there's no doubt who did the killing the boy wonder who turned out to be not quite the pushover after all but a sinisterly cunning diabolical criminal mastermind and already in the same day remember he leaves new york and is never to be seen again in new york far out of the reaches of any of the five families and locked away in his impenetrable mansion in nevada although obviously he does return to new york years later and the godfather part three but we're not going to talk about that here realistically after this surprising and shocking turn of events after you felt like on top of the world what would be the immediate reaction that comes to mind would it really be thirst for revenge or would it be fear fear of this new power fear that you'll be the next to be lying on a sidewalk so why did no one retaliate against michael well anyone who realistically could retaliate had been taken out after being caught off guard and the rest must have been scared shitless the corleones turned the entire new york underground on its head in a single day leaving them all in a state of panic michael's move wasn't just a tangible one it was a psychological power move also and then there's the issue of who will inherit the throne in each family it's pure speculation to suggest that an heir would be lined up ready to take the throne of the barzini family this strategy family etc and the heir to the titalia family bruno was already dead if you remember even don vito didn't have a clear successor sure sony took over while he was injured but vito said himself he thought sonia was a bad don and that's a man who plans ten steps ahead it's likely the four families were in complete disarray they would have spent time cleaning up house there may have been infighting between those who are looking to become the next boss take a look at the sopranos and the constant fighting for the big seat after carmine lupertazi dies that could be happening with the four new york families forget the sopranos stick with the godfather and look how uncoordinated the corollions look after vito gets hurt sonny and tom arguing no one really sure how to proceed until michael steps up and takes the initiative by suggesting to take out solotso himself who could possibly take up the mantle of head of the family and face a monster like michael corleone in battle on top of that for a successful revenge mission to be carried out would have to take at least months of coordinated planning but michael has already moved his operations and has pretty much nothing to do with new york it's also established that peter clemenza and rocco lampone rocco lampone was building a secret regime remember moved in and took over rival operations before the other families could regroup and learn what hit them the coreleons didn't just take out four men and call it a day many things went on off-screen but we basically saw the summarization of it all the symbolism of michael's victory with the heads of the other families taken out at the same time it was all too much too fast too well done for any of the families to stage a fight back even if they wanted to they were completely emasculated by michael's plan they were left looking at each other to make a move realistically they would have been looking to their leader don barzini to make the move the one who gave everyone else like philip italia the confidence to go after the chorions in the first place but of course barzini was dead as mentioned the corleones were packing up and moving out on the same day of the baptism there was just no time to make a move on michael before he got out of new york and even if another family got their act together and started a fight back months or years later who cares it's got nothing to do with michael he's above all that now on to bigger and better things and keeping new york under the thumb would be the job of clemenza and after his death his successor frank pentangili and in the senate hearings of the second film they mentioned that michael consolidated power for himself in new york so he must have to some extent swallowed much of the underworld after taking out the heads of the rival four families and anyway there was retaliation for michael's actions there's some stuff that happens in the books which i'll get to in a bit but even in the movies remember hyman roth putting out a hit on michael in the second film well why did that happen that was mainly because michael took out mo green as part of the baptism of fire roth was perhaps the only person in the world who could get close to michael and even then he had to count on the betrayal of michael's own brother fredo the heads of the new york families didn't have a single hope to get close to michael they'd have to be content with fighting clemenza's regime in new york and it makes sense for us not to see that because we follow michael in the films there's another possibility i want to suggest to you how do you even know that the rival families even knew michael was responsible for the hits sure in general we tend to think that it was well known that michael carried out the hits and he that he wanted it to be known given it was a power move but when is that ever stated what if michael made it so that it looked like he got his family out of new york and the mobsters just all killed each other yes michael told carlo that he killed the heads of the other families but carlo is killed shortly after so he wouldn't have told anybody michael was a rookie don who's to say he even made the list of the other family suspects it could have been someone internally in each family doing the killing to rise up it could have been another family the koreans could have pinned the murders of tessio and carla on other families and made it out that these were part of skirmishes between all the mob families and not some grand calculated maneuver it's a stretch i know but a similar angle is played in the godfather returns a book published in 2004 and written by mark weingartner the novel is a direct sequel to the godfather and one that i've reviewed on the channel by the way one of the more interesting aspects of it is the fallout of the baptism of fire for example tessio is killed and his body is left on barzini territory so that they would take the heat for the murder from law enforcement it also goes into more detail of just how the coreleons had prepared for their big power move with safe houses in every borough underground garages full of cars and trucks with phony licenses some exact replicas of ones driven by the higher ups of the korean crime family to mislead the cops and rival mobsters a meeting takes place with several mobsters in the book where it's clear that no one is entirely sure who carried out the hits all they know is barzini is dead tatalya is dead tessio is dead and the brother-in-law of don michael corleone is dead any number of possibilities could come about from that the book is a little bit weird because it's a sequel to both the film and the original novel but i believe it follows the book when it comes to the baptism of fire and only the barzini and tatalia families are hit that even makes the other two families suspects as they could have launched a campaign to gain power michael is suspected of killing his rivals after they move in on the corleones but no one is ever completely sure in fact a suggestion is made by one of the characters that michael killed everyone but is considered a hyperbole and too far-fetched in fact part of the main story of the godfather returns is rival mobsters wanting to take michael out because they suspect him so it's not as if michael simply killed four people and then walked away there was retaliation there were consequences people tried to fight back but they just didn't have the muscle or intelligence so it didn't amount to anything one plot point in the book involves michael arranging for his remaining enemies along with one of his own men whom he sacrifices to board a plane which intentionally malfunctions and crashes into the sea eliminating anyone who had any real motivation left for killing michael and the rest learnt that this is simply not a man that you can fight and win so they back down the death of corleone crime family members like tecio is actually blamed on the chorion's rivals and the death of the korean rivals on other korean rivals as the book says during a corleone family meeting they discussed the toll of the war with the barzinis and italians had taken on the family's business interest they discussed the accommodations made for the wife and family of tessio that saddest and unlikeliest of traitors friend and partner of vito corleone since their youth and the medical funeral and family financial needs of the organization's other casualties they discussed the triumph of the erroneous but widely held opinion among the nypd and the newspapers among other crime families among nearly everyone outside the corleone family that both tessio and the wife beating brute carlo mike's brother-in-law and the de facto murderer of his brother sonny had been killed by men dispatched by barazzini or tatalia on top of this the corollon family's man in the new york da's office planned to bring a series of indictments this week charging members of the tatalya family with the murder of emilio brazzini and charging members of the barzini family with the murder of philip italia even if as was likely these arrests didn't result in convictions the fbi would consider the matter closed and stay out of it local cops hundreds of whom had suffered from the lost income as much as any [ __ ] were happiest with business as usual the short attention span of the public would soon swerve back as it reliably does to bread and circuses all in all the current ceasefire stood to be a genuine peace personally i'm not the biggest fan with the godfather returns interpretation of the fallout i don't quite find it believable that michael isn't the prime suspect in the murders surely other mobsters can't be that dumb i much prefer the notion that michael wanted his enemies to know he carried out the killings and the underworld was completely aware but unable to do anything about it with the efficiency and surprisingly quick moves of rocco and clemenza after lengthy preparations swooping in and asserting control over as much of new york as they could raiding businesses before their rivals picked themselves back up and dusted themselves off of course there would be retaliation and continued fighting there always is and it's mentioned in the second film that frank pentanjali michael's man in new york faces a tough fight from the rosato brothers and there would have been a lot more some before the risotto some after some during but michael was already doing crime on an international level with his business with the havana studios so it has nothing to do with him so what do you think of all of this what do you think happened in new york after the baptism of fire did this video help fill the gaps let me know in the comments below subscribe to the channel and thanks for watching

Channel: CineRanter

Views: 591,006

Keywords: cosa nostra, marlon brando, al pacino, the godfather, five families murder, don michael corleone, vito corleone

Id: T4Fmknypd0w

Length: 19min 23sec (1163 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 20 2021