“Every story has three sides: your side, my side and the truth. And nobody lies. Shared memories serve everyone differently.” – Robert Evans, The Kid Stays in the Picture
~[to the tune of The Beverly Hillbillies]~
Come and hear the story of a man named Bob
Running Par-a-mount Studios was his job
Needed a producer for a hot property
So he called a guy named Al Rud-dyyyyy…
Unfortunately, this is not the subject of The Offer. The creators of the Paramount+ limited series about the making of The Godfather have opted for a cheap re-imagining of the Mad Men opening score, aiming to evoke a ringing feel of bad guys with a touch of vintage glamour. In the spirit of truth in advertising, we wish they had something more sitcom-esque. A 10-part megillah that traces the wild, wacky, weirder origin story of one of the greatest (if not the greatest) movies of all time, this throwback to the ’70s attempts to hit many targets at once: a biopic, a no-biz related showbiz investigative drama, a backstage drama, a workplace farce, a meta-mob epic, an anti-hero saga of ‘difficult men’, a parable of empowering women and a fragmentary tale of the underdog’s triumph with flop- Smeared with sweat and canned spaghetti sauce. However, it really only works as a parody of Prestige TV. If the story of the godfather’s turbulent birth and subsequent blockbuster success teaches us anything, it’s that victory can somehow be overcome against all odds and defeat can be snatched away. This misguided attempt to reconsider this project proves that the opposite is just as true. Streaming begins April 28th. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
It’s worth remembering that Evans quotes at the top, and not just because the legendary Paramount studio head – portrayed with equal parts oil and vinegar by Matthew Goode – is one of several big players vying for pole position battle. There’s also Mario Puzo (Patrick Gallo), the best-selling author who follows the siren call of Tinseltown to adapt his novel; Francis Ford Coppola (Dan Fogler), the bearded author brought in to provide Italian-American bona fides; Joe Colombo (Giovanni Ribisi), the crime boss and founder of the Italian-American Civil Rights League, who goes from enemy to the film’s most important ally; Charles Bludhorn (Halo’s Burn Gorman), the head of Gulf + Western, tearing his hair out over this runaway production; and Barry Lapidus (Colin Hanks), a corporate executive who is fed up with these crazy kids trying to make a movie without giving a thought to the end result! A variety of supporting characters, from Evans’ consigliere Peter Bart to a charismatic Colombo crime gangster named Caesar, also move in and out of the frame.
No, this maxim of storytelling, memory and truth is particularly relevant to The Offer, for what sounds like an ensemble piece on paper is dominated by the “my side” perspective of one person, and one person only. It goes without saying that Al Ruddy was a key member of the team behind the scenes on The Godfather – according to the show, the former Rand Corporation employee stumbled into the production of Hogan’s Heroes for CBS and then talked his way through to producing, what would become a seminal American film. He is also a producer on that series, and although The Offer reviews Ernest Lupinacci’s book The Godfather Gang: In Hollywood, Everything Is Personal, the primary basis for this narrative is “Based on Al Ruddy’s experience producing The Godfather.” According to this report, it’s Ruddy (Miles Teller), along with his trusty assistant/mover/shaker Bettye McCart (Juno Temple), who really did all the important shit.
Ruddy was the one who dreamed up the opening wedding scene. Ruddy was the one who insisted Coppola was the only director who could make it work. Ruddy was the one dodging Mickey Cohen’s bullets and making ethical compromises so they could shoot the Sicily sequences. Ruddy personally brokered every deal and insisted that Marlon Brando be cast, hell or high water. Ruddy personally fought off a mob war and averted every possible catastrophe at the last moment and possibly invented a cure for cancer and probably saved the whales. A subplot about a failed relationship shows Al less as an inattentive partner and more as a man married to his work – he has his demons and can be absolutely horrible to friends and lovers, but baby he’s so good at his job! (Sound familiar, TV viewers?) It’s really surprising that Teller’s co-stars aren’t credited as “Ruddy’s Director,” “Ruddy’s Star,” “Ruddy’s Boss,” “Ruddy’s Girlfriend,” and “Ruddy’s Mob Buddy.” are listed .” This isn’t just a print-the-legend look at film history. It’s a ruddyography that turns a perfect storm of collaborators into supporting players in the making of The Ruddfather.
All this Ruddy willing-and-able backslapping might have been acceptable one-sided revisionism, just one more addition to the ever-growing cottage industry of Godfather lore – so much of it is eagerly refuted or totally ignored here (unsurprisingly, very few others First-hand participants were consulted) – if those 10 episodes had anything else of note to offer. But Ruddy’s elevation to King Emperor of Corleone Mountain is surrounded by a seemingly escalating number of bad decisions and a total lack of quality control. Say what you will about Ruddy, Evans, Colombo and Bludhorn: They were complicated characters, full of more than just sound and fury, and they are here reduced to one-dimensional archetypes. Teller seems to be more MIA than usual, which is saying something; He’s at his best when he’s with Temple, but not even their patented salt-and-sass-second-banana act can convince him to be a full presence in their scenes together. (This guy was supposed to be the next Robert Mitchum, so why isn’t he?) Fogler’s Coppola is fine but doesn’t make much of an impression, and you feel sorry for the young actors who are forced to pose as Brando, Pacino, Sinatra, etc. to embody. ; this line from another popular movie about “a wax museum with a pulse” comes to mind. Only Goode seems to be having fun as he struts around as Hollywood royalty, draping everything in Evans’ patrician-with-a-cold-head voice. And even he sinks deep in the quicksand of The Offer’s flattering New Hollywood nostalgia.
Many of the well-known anecdotal marks are hit, from Ruddy’s one-sentence pitch about Bludhorn (“It’s a stone-cold thriller about the people you love”) to Brando’s informal, transformative screen test, but they’re strung together in a way that feels all too often feel random and shallow. Michael Tolkin, who co-wrote and co-produced all 10 episodes, is no slouch when it comes to scriptwriting (The Player, the incredibly underrated Rapture) or storytelling (Escape at Dannemora). Which just makes the lazy use of tongue-in-cheek nudges, random Godfather quotes, and the endless recycling of breast-pounding showbiz clichés — “We don’t play by the book, we write the damn book!” “We can’t chase after what that we think the audience wants to see, we have to show the audience what they need to see!” – all the more confusing. Each person will have their breaking point in this series, and for this writer, it’s a sequence where someone discovers a horse prop. “Horses are meant to represent courage and freedom,” she says, “and cut off his head… that’s America right there.”
It’s frankly impossible to know whether we should take that sequence of words seriously in that order, any more than we are The Offer mocking Paramount lackeys by declaring that a V-shaped composition of Corleones on a poster Marketing is “kiss of death”… and then using the exact same formation on their own poster. Miracles really never stop. There is such a rich story to be gleaned from the making of a classic tale of family, crime, country, history and movies, and such a massive missed opportunity in what the folks behind this series have dreamed up. The memories shared serve each differently, but together they all remember the making of The Godfather as inspiration for a pinnacle of American cinema. Now we can all say that it also inspired an unforgettable, horrifying low point in television.