So I just watched The Godfather Part 2 for a second time, and I have some questions:
(1) So what was the exact deal with Michael, Roth, the Rosato brothers and Pentangeli. Who betrayed who? Who knew what when? Who was lying to who?
(2) In the flashback scenes, Vito goes to the local mafia boss and offers to pay him only $100 instead of far more. The boss, instead of beating him up, offers him a job. Wha? Am I missing something?
(3) Does anyone know if the scene in Cuba where the president, at a gala party for rich people, basically says “happy new year everyone! Oh, and the government is collapsing, the rebels have won, and I’m leaving. Bye!” is at all historically accurate?
The Bros and Pentangli took over Clemenzas territory when he died between movies, However, apparently Pentangli didn’t want to give up some of the territory he was supposed to to the Bros, causing the problems. Roth was backing the brothers, but at the same time pretending to back Micheal. Roth has Johnny Ola arrange with fredo to kill Micheal(which fails), which gets Micheals attention in a big way. It’s hard to tell how much Fredo knows but somebody opened the curtains (and maybe let the shooters in, but they may have just been with the party guests and hid until everyone left).
Micheal, meanwhile, tries to play Roth and Pentagenli off each other to make them think he suspects the other. Roth tries to kill Pentangli but then blames it on Micheal, getting him to run to the cops and squel(and start living with the FBI guys). It might be this point that Micheal realizes that Roth was responsible.
It’s in Cuba, when Fredo slips up and reveals his connection to Johnny Ola(Roth’s messanger boy) that Micheal knows Fredo was the one who betrayed him(remember, before Fredo said he didn’t know Johnny. Later he says “Johnny took me here!”, apparently forgetting his brother was standing right there)
I think the idea it showed Vito had balls, big ones, and the Don decided that maybe he could use a guy like that working for him. Of course, Vito had other things in mind.
In real life, Batista resigned the presidency at midnight January 1, 1959 (notifying his guests at a New Years party he hosted at his home), and got on a plane at 3 that morning to the Dominican Republic. Other Batista associates fled that day, and Meyer Lansky (who Roth is based on), fled that night. So that part was hystorically accurate.
So while the guys were choking him, they said “Michael Corleone says hello”. Were they told to say that while killing him, just so that, should the choknig commence but be interrupted before achieving its final result, the framing of Michael would be made easier?
don’t look for sound reasoning or logical progressions of thought or plot in G2. They aren’t there. neither look for unity or cohesion with G1.
There are too many holes; they just spent too much time on everything else to bother with a good tight script.
hh