dburghardt, please don't sell yourself short. You made good observations about Tom in your post . From reading past threads, I see that quite a few others don't know what to make of his character also. Some saw him as the moral conscience of the family (in the way he's against starting another war and the way he's pro-negotiation when Sonny took charge). Then others point out that he knows perfectly well that he's doing evil deeds on behalf of evil doers (he seems too calm when a prostitute is brutally murdered in order to frame Senator Geary, for example).

You might find interesting reading in a 1973 draft script of GF2 that's on the internet (at Internet Movie Script Database ). It shows a larger role for Tom and more of his internal struggles, especially concerning Michael's perceived loss of confidence in him. Yes, it does show that there's more to him than we see in the finished film. I guess with both GF movies running at over 3 hours, they had to cut down some of Tom's screen time. (When it came to GF2, though, they should have left in Tom's footage and cut out the young Vito flashbacks, IMO .)

And as you said, Duvall's acting is good. In the Hagen role, he doesn't have the showiest part: he's a mild-mannered, loyal attorney. But that's what the role called for and he slipped into character so well that he doesn't register a false note.
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my two cents ... CW (btw, I didn't realize that my screen name initials could also stand for Country and Western... but that's OK; nothing wrong with country & western music. I'm just glad that my initials don't spell out anything embarrassing, like D.U.M. or A.S.S. )