I never thought of that. You guys are making it harder for me to shore up my Rocco theory . I had surmised that some kind of betrayal -- real or perceived -- prompted Michael to choose Rocco as Roth's shooter. But your observations show that this decision would cause great personal damage to Michael. Why send Rocco at all? When if Rocco had lived and cut a deal?

In fact, plawrence posed that question ("When if Rocco had been captured alive?") earlier in this thread, and I dismissed it (I'm embarrassed now ), saying that Rocco's death was a given. It was staged by FFC for dramatic effect. Now you've pointed out a flaw in that argument as well:

You caught me there, MM Tom Hagen. If FFC was so intent on dramatic impact, as I had postulated, why didn't he include a confrontational scene unveiling Rocco's disloyalty, like the one between Michael and Carlo in the 1st Godfather?

Yes, the answers to our questions may very well be right there.

I believe it was plawrence who had posted in an older thread that there are several plot holes in GF II: loose ends not tied up, lapses in logic, etc., as if Coppola and Puzo were on a tight deadline and didn't have time to think everything through. (I think it was plawrence who posted that. Apologies if I got it wrong; I'm relying on memory here.) The important thing, though, was the overall narrative. As plawrence also noted, the filmmakers would never have guessed that 30+ years later, people like us would be examining every little loose end.

Or, it could be that they did think things through; but, as Turnbull noted, time constraints meant they had to edit several scenes out.

But it still doesn't mean I can get this "Who killed the killers?" question out of mind so easily!