“The Offer” is a Netflix series ostensibly about the making of “The Godfather.” That one of the finest and most rich and nuanced American films ever made is its subject makes the series significant by default alone.
Interestingly, it has a quite different set of scores on the website Rotten Tomatoes. Its overall critics’ score is a middling 48% average (out of 100). The top critics’ score is an almost embarrassing 35%. Yet its audience score is an impressive 96%.
The disparity between the two groups is too great to not have some sort of significance. And in this case, this critic largely sides with the audience.
I can’t really agree with Rolling Stone’s assessment that the series is “a forgettable, God-awful low point in television.” If it is really so bad, why do so many TV viewers like it? Besides, the bottom in TV is so much lower. Especially these days.
On the other hand, as much as I got a small kick from watching it, the show is not without its flaws. Variety’s take on it nails the flaws far more directly. First, at 10 episodes it’s way too long by about half. Second, the main characters, especially the mobsters, are largely a collection of clichés.
Third, it’s way too focused on producer Al Ruddy, who left a gig with the Rand Corporation think tank to become a Hollywood producer and created the TV show “Hogan’s Heroes.” And then went on to produce, in a psychic jump that almost reads like a joke, “The Godfather.” Plus executive produces this series in which onscreen Al Ruddy saves the day so many times he should have his own superhero costume.
So let’s just accept the fact that it’s historical revisionism driven by egotistical self-interest. And heed the danger of such adaptations from recent events becoming the historical record.
Especially because the reason I believe audiences watched and liked “The Offer” is that the key beats on how “The Godfather” became a movie for the ages are a helluva great story. Hack publications writer Mario Puzo, to try to lift himself from the low-income freelance writing grind, barrels out a sprawling novel that takes readers inside The Mafia – back then in the late 1960s in the headlines yet still something of a mystery to many Americans – and winds up with a huge best-seller.
He and budding filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola manage to distill from the rather thick book a compelling slice of Italian-American organized crime family life. (And in the process create a potent and enduring filmed entertainment genre … witness “The Sopranos,” for starters. Which also explains why audiences like “The Offer.”)
Add to that the challenge of creating high cinematic art on a meat and potatoes budget. Plus the machinations that have been part and parcel of Hollywood alongside the investment capitalism industry in the earlier stages of adding the entertainment industry to its poker game.
“The Offer” tackles all this in a breezy, easily-chewable way that does feel like snacking on cotton candy … or, say, funnel cake – too much air and empty calories – albeit purchased in the evocative realm of Manhattan’s San Gennaro Festival.
And its critics do have a point. Compare what “The Offer” is to the cinematic landmark of “The Godfather” with such origin stories for another movie that changed the game, “Citizen Kane,” as the excellent “RKO 281” and “Mank.” Yeah, “The Offer” is riddled with piffle. Tasty piffle … but still piffle. Its seriously dramatic core subject and story around it deserved to be better served.
Ultimately, “The Offer” does play like cheap chain restaurant pizza, as opposed to a luscious and filling multi-course Italian family feast. But sometimes a snack isn’t all that bad. And, sadly, history and hagiography these days goes to whoever makes the “based upon a true story” TV series or movie about it.
TV Series: “The Italian Americans” – As the above touches on, the Italian American immigrant experience has been too often conflated with the Mafia and organized crime. This PBS American Experience doc offers a broader look at how this population has affected – and, without a doubt, enhanced – our nation, society and culture. It’s a well-told slice of cultural anthropology that’s informative and insightful.
Movie: “Official Secrets” – Relatively accurate and quite affecting real-life tale of a courageous British intelligence whistleblower during the run-up to the Iraq War with a strong and resonant performance by Keira Knightly.
Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email orca@prismnet.com.
From The Progressive Populist, July 1-15, 2022
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