Film columnist and writer Niles Schwartz:
An attitude of the entire trilogy deals with how all corruption is equal. As Michael (Al Pacino) tells Senator Pat Geary (G.D. Spradlin) in Part II, “We’re both a part of the same hypocrisy,” and then later speaking of the political bodies combating him in Part III, “Italian politics have had these men for centuries. They’re the true mafia.” The opening of The Godfather, romance though it is, speaks the same sentiment as the prologue in the more anthropologically-correct prologue of Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas, where Henry Hill narrates, “What the organization is offering is protection for people who can’t go to the cops. That’s it, what the FBI could never get. Like a police department for wise guys.”