I know I'm new to these boards but one thing thats stuck in my mind from the first Godfather is that when Vito Corleone is shot by the two assasins he takes five shots into the upperbody close range and even though this puts him in hospital for several months he survives and regains his full strenght. But when Don Barzini is murdered by Al Neri (ithink) he gets shot 2-3 times at a distance of 20feet or more so how come he dies instantly

Short Answer: Because that's how the story goes; Don Corleone is shot 5 times and survives, but Barzini is shot only a couple and dies (I forget how many times he's shot in the novel, if it even mentions it)

Long Answer: Maybe the two hired thugs were nervous, and their aim was a little off? They couldn't really stick around and make sure Don Corleone was dead; their mission was probably to ambush him, shoot him a few times and get the hell out of Dodge.

Neri, on the other hand, was a pig (i.e. a cop) and probably a much better shot, not to mention the fact he shot slowly and probably aimed for certain areas, although I have to admit that scene is corny because he takes his time to line up the shots, instead of just blasting.

Well said, Neri is a sharpshooter

It's cause Al Neri is the f*ckin' man!!!

LOL. Yeah.

More logically, it depends what you hit. You could get shot 5 times, and if it mainly hits muscle and non-vital organs, live through it.

But if you get shot once right through the heart, you're done for (especially in 1951).

Also, and this is a quibble, I don't think Vito ever returns to full strength afterward. He is in bed for months, gets on his feet when Sonny gets killed, but clearly is still not in very good shape.

Then after Michael returns and comes to get Kay back, he tells her, "my father's been sick ... very sick."

According to the DVD timeline of when Vito was supposed to be born, he was barely 60 years old or maybe not even 60 when he died - and he sure wasn't in very good shape for 60.

He did recover somewhat but I don't think he ever made it back to "full health" or anything close to it.

According to the novel, none of the five shots hit the Don in a vital organ. The first bullet hit him "in the back." The next two hit him "in the buttocks." The two gunmen then moved toward the Don "in order to finish him off." BUT: Fredo, who seemed so worthless in this scene in the movie, may have saved the Don: "no more than five seconds after the Don's call to Fredo for help, Fredo appeared out of his car, looming over it." Apparently this caused the gunmen to hurry up; they fired "two more hasty shots...one hit the Don in the fleshy part of his arm and the second hit him in the calf of his right leg." The Don lost a lot of blood, but the detective on the family payrollwho arrived on the scene within minutes called Sonny to tell him that the Don would survive: "A lot of blood but I think maybe he's not as bad as he looks."