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Too long, too ponderous. Too excessive in the scenes in Cuba and the Little Italy flashbacks. Michael’s corrupt, unlikeable, uninteresting. One-note performance, one-note character. He doesn’t change. We don’t care what happens to him the way we did with all the characters in Part I. No human foils for Michael, other than Fredo. He doesn’t have Sonny, Tessio, Clemenza, Don Vito to play off of. Tom has too little to do here. Pentangeli and Hyman Roth are the only really interesting characters, yet we don’t see enough of them. They would have been great foils for Michael if they were around more. And Michael having Roth killed is ridiculous. Meyer Lansky outlived all of them. That was the REAL story here. Also, big continuity error. Willy Cicci (Spinell) seems to get killed early on, shooting it out with the Rosato brothers (Carmine Caridi and Danny Aiello) in the Bronx. But then he turns up testifying before the Senate committee. No indication of what happened with him. If he was still alive, why did he disappear from the movie? Why was he allowed to testify about the mafia? Makes no sense. Kay Adams really drags this movie down. No way Michael would have married someone so outside the culture.

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In Godfather 2, why did Willi Cicci testify against Michael? Is he also intimidated by Roth like Frank Pentangeli did? What happened to him?

First of all, Frank Pentangeli did not testify because of any alliance or fear of Hyman Roth. Pentangeli hated Roth, And his Sicilian messanger boy Johnny Ola. Pentangeli testified against Michael because Roth set him up to believe Michael had turned on him.

This is a very complicated series of events that led up to the Senate hearings of Michael Corleone.

Going back to what started the feud between Roth and Michael, it was Michael's ordering the hit on Moe Greene that sparked this whole thing. In the original Godfather film it was Greene who would not sell his share of the hotel to Michael who was planning a hostile takeover of the Las Vegas hotels and casinos. Greene also let Michael know he had formed an alliance with the Barzzini family in order to keep his hotel. Michael would have nothing of it and whacked Greene along with the heads of the five families. Greene was a protege of Roth's and was like a son to Roth.

Now getting to Frank Pentangeli. At Michael's home in Tahoe, Pentangeli wanted to eliminate the Rozzotto Brothers who were taking over the territories in New York he had aquired from Michael and Clemenza. Upon Clemenza's death, Frank took over all the New York territory with Willie Cicci as his consigliere.

Michael refused to allow Pentangeli permission to eliminate the Rozzotto's as it would have interfered with his plans with Roth. This infuriated Pentangeli and he left Tahoe on bad terms with Michael.

Pentangeli met with the Rozzotto's in New York when the Rozzotto's tried to kill Frankie telling him it was from Michael. When in reality it was the beginning of Roth's plan to take Michael down.

The reason Cicci testified against the Corleone's was simple. Cicci was wounded and captured during the shootout with the Rozzotto Brothers. At that point he had no reason not to testify. He probably had no knowledge that Frankie was still alive so Cicci testified against Michael out of revenge, but there was always a buffer between Cicci and Michael. That's​ why the Senate needed Pentangeli to testify as he got his orders straight from Michael himself.

Once Cicci testified, it was probably part of a plea deal with the feds and Cicci goes and does his time. They already had him on several class A felonies such as murder, conspiracy, racketeering and a lot more. Testifying was basically a no-brainer. That's the end of his involvement with the movie plot. It is assumed he did what ever time he was sentenced to and he lived out his life.

Pentangeli testified out of​ revenge thinking it was Michael who tried to have him killed in New York.

This was proven in Havana in Roth's hotel room when Michael asks him who had Frank Pentangeli killed. That's when Roth gives that famous speech about what a great man Moe Greene was and that there wasn't even a plaque or a statue in Vegas to remember him. Basically the town Moe Greene had created.

Michael's only recourse to the Roth's Senate plans was ​to bring Frankie's brother to the court room and persuade Frank not to go through with it.

Once Michael got the best of Roth, he turned his attention to poor Fredo who was duped into helping Roth and the Rozzotto's attempt the hit on Michael in his home in Tahoe. Fredo was always resentful of Michael stepping over him to become the head of the family. That's when Michael basically disowned Fredo. Waiting until the death of his mother, that's when Michael had Al Neri kill Fredo in the motor boat on the lake.

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The Godfather II - why is this film given so much praise?

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