Why does Michael kill Sollozzo?

The Corleones know where the meeting is being held, and have a gun planted for Michael. Why not just have buttons at the restaurant beforehand, and have them take out Sollozzo and McCluskey?

If Michael hadn't killed Sollozzo and McCluskey, we wouldn't have had a Godfather Trilogy. It's the central event in his conversion from "nice college boy" to Don.

And to add to what Turnbull pointed out, I'm sure that Sollozo had his people check out the restaurant, for any potential hitmen, before Michael, McClusky and Sollozo got there.

It would have been too risky to plant hitmen that could have been identified, at the restaurant. Remember, Michael was considerd a civilian without any background of ever being involved in his father's business. It was public knowledge that Mike was a war hero.

Having Michael hit them was the safest and most foolproof plan. Unexpected by everyone.


Don Cardi

oh yes

Exactly, and Clemenza actually makes this point explicitly when he tell Mike that he is considered to be a civilian. Sollozzo reckons Mike to be a "nice college boy" who would blanche at the very idea of holding a gun, never mind firing one at a New York police captain.

Sollozzo was in a weak position; he had tried and failed to kill the Don. He therefore had to negotiate, but realized that if he showed one hair on his head, Sonny's buttonmen would take him out. Who better to talk to, then, than the Don's college boy youngest son, a decorated war hero, with no involvement in the family business? Who Carlo probably told him was, if anything, opposed to the Don's line of work?

Mike was the only man who could have gotten to Sollozzo simply because the nervous and paranoid Sollozzo was on high alert following the failed assassination. A "civilian" was required, and Mike stepped up.

Having buttonmen in the restaurant would have been the equivalent of Michael entering the meeting with a gun; it would have alerted Solozzo that something was up, and the plan never would have worked.

The only way to do it was totally by surprise; Michael, the least threat to Solozzo, entered the meeting alone and unarmed. Solozzo was already on the run, fearing for his life, and so the slightest hint that anything was up would have been disastrous.

That's why Solozzo requested the meeting with Michael -- because he knew that Michael was a civilion and was not involved in the business. Anyone who posed any threat to Solozzo would have been treated with a lot more suspicion. In fact, look how suspicious Solozzo is of Michael despite Michael's unthreatening status.

Yea Vito remember when Mike has to go to the bathroom Solozzo frisks him.

McCluskey was Sollozzo's body guard, so he woul have checked for button men. Besides this is a classic example of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. Sollozzo, while suspicious, is comfortable enough to insult Michael by saying he hopes he is not a hothead like his brother..."you cna't reason with him." McCluskey, of course is clueless.

If they were worried about other people being there, then having Michael do the killing means that Michael is going to be killed immediately afterwards by the other Sollozzo people. If it was just Sollozzo and McCluskey, then the Corleone's hitmen could handle it. Maybe the Corleone's were worried about the place being searched. So they could have people show up during the meal.

Carlo was not yet a traitor at that point.

While reading this topic, a couple of questions popped into my head that I hadn't considered before.
I was wondering what Sollozzo would do about the diners, since I would think that a hitman could pose as a customer having dinner. And what would he do about diners coming in midway through his meeting with Michael? It occurred to me that the safest bet would be for Sollozzo to bribe (or threaten) the restaurant owner into letting in only his regular, known customers that night OR to order him to empty the restaurant, leaving only Sollozzo's people posing as diners.

What I can't figure out, though, is IF the restaurant is emptied of all but Sollozzo's people, how did one of Sonny's men, one hour before the meeting, sneak into the restaurant to plant the gun in the bathroom? Wouldn't Sollozzo's men (the "pretend diners") be in place by then to notice a stranger enter the restaurant?

This could mean that my assumption is all wrong. Maybe Sollozzo's men searched the restaurant and then left. But that brings me back to my original question: How could Sollozzo be sure every male diner -- whether already present or arriving afterward -- wasn't a Corleone hitman?
Now there's another question. I thought I had read a past post in which someone said that he noticed Sollozzo nod to or signal one of his men at another table when Michael went to the washroom. I also believe the poster mentioned that the presence of this man was clear in the book.

If there was such a man (and I can't recall seeing one in the movie), why didn't he make a move after Michael killed Sollozzo and McCluskey? Michael stands frozen over the two men's bodies for a fair bit of time, giving Sollozzo's man the opportunity to shoot and kill Michael. Never mind that, why didn't this man of Sollozzo's follow Michael to the washroom in the first place?

Now I know the real reason for all of these apparent "flaws" is dramatic narrative. For the story to progress as FFC & Puzo want it, the Sollozzo-McCluskey shooting has to play out as it does in the movie. But for discussion's sake, is there a logical reason Sollozzo didn't do certain things, or is it just a case of Sollozzo placing too much trust in Michael's civilian status? As Turnbull has observed, there are many cases in the Godfather films of men exhibiting the fatal flaw of underestimating each other. Do you think this was such a case?

Well, it was well known Michael was a war hero, but If I were Sollozzo I would have taken care about him, even Michael hadn`t criminal backgrounds, he was a was hero and that makes him capable to kill, he must have killed more than one hundred people in the World War 2. I guess doesn`t make any difference but the far or close distance like Santino says to Michael.

Despite all this, Michael was the only choice, so he was not believed to be a gangster, but Michael did it both business and personal matters. They shot his father to .

"Everything is personal. Every bit of business" Michael Corleone in The Godfather Novel

You're right, DPN: Sollozzo (and McCluskey) should have been more wary. But (as I've posted about a million times before ), a major subtheme of the trilogy is how crises are caused by people misjudging or underestimating others. Vito underestimated Tattaglia and Sollozzo. But Sollozzo and McCluskey underestimated Michael. Since you quoted the novel, you'll remember that Sonny said that the most important reason to have Michael do the killing was that "they got Mike down as faggy" because he didn't fight back or press charges when McCluskey broke his jaw.

Thank you for your opinion, Don Pappo. As you say, it certainly sounds like Sollozzo made a mistake by not considering that Michael had killing experience from the war (albeit from a distance, as Sonny noted ).

I just thought of an answer to my first question. If Sollozzo ordered the restaurant owner to only admit his regular customers, then I suppose one of Sonny's men could have offered a bigger bribe (or a bigger threat ) so that he would be allowed to pose as a regular customer, thus allowing him to plant the gun in the washroom. (I can envision him convincing the restaurant owner, telling him that "Sollozzo and his policeman friend will be dead before the evening's over. You won't have to worry about retaliation from him.")

This corresponds with your opinion that Sollozzo made a mistake. It would have been smarter for him to order that the restaurant be emptied and that only his own people be there to pose as diners. But I guess he didn't think of everything . As Turnbull says, it's another classic case of Godfather characters underestimating each other.

I suppose an element of luck and timing was involved too. Sollozzo's men must have searched the restaurant earlier, and Sonny's man must have planted the gun AFTER the search was over. Luckily for Michael, the two sides didn't cross paths in the bathroom!

Sollozzo doesn't expect the Corleone's to know where the meeting is being held, which is why he wasn't that worried about security. Sollozzo presumably didn't buy protection like the Corleones did. Either that or Sonny was willing to take on that family as well. This brings me back to my original point. Once the Corleones knew where the meeting was being held, they should have been able to take out Sollozzo themselves, and didn't need to rely on Michael to do it.

Well if memory serves me correctly, in the book, one of Sollozo's men WAS sitting in the restaurant when Micheal shot The Turk and McClusky. I seem to remember a line in the book saying that after Mike shot them, he looked over at the guy sitting at another table ( the Sollozo guy), and the guy shook his head, or turned away, something like that. He basically gave Mike a signal that he did not wish to get involved and that there would be no trouble from him.

Does anyone recall something like this?


Don Cardi

Yes, in the novel, just befor Michael went to the john, Sollozzo turned to a lone diner at antoher table (his own man), who nodded that he'd checked out the toilet and it was ok. After Michael shot the two, he turned his gun on that guy, who put his (empty) hands on the table and looked away, as a sign that he'd cause no trouble.

He obviously didn't do his job very well!

In all likelyhood Sollozo's guy probably checked the toilet to see if any hit men were in there, to see if the coast was clear. I highly doubt that they would be sweeping the toilet to see if anything was planted in there. They were concerned with someone being planted in there, not something.


Don Cardi

The key point here with respect to security at the restaurant is made by FFA:
Remember, the Corleones didn't find out where the meeting would be held until virtually the last minute. Sollozzo presumably thought it was still a secret.

His "man" in the restaurant was simply an added precaution. Sollozzo truly believed he was completely safe while being guarded by a New York City Police Captain.

plawrence beat me to it, but I was going to acknowledge FrankieFiveAngels' observation that Sollozzo had kept the location of the restaurant a secret and never expected the Corleone people to discover it beforehand.

If only I had remembered that important detail, I could have saved myself a big, long post . Oh well, it was still fun to read everyone's analyses of the hows and whys.

FrankieFiveAngels, sometimes it takes a newcomer to refresh my memory and redirect me to the obvious.