Giuseppi, I think that you may be on to something. Bewteen the lack of background shown or explained in the movie on both Neri and Luca, I get the impression that it may have intentionally been done by FFC because he wanted the veiwer to look upon these characters from a 'distance', almost with a "who are these guys" type of attitude. Without giving us a background on either of these characters, it prevents the veiwer from getting an intimate feeling about them, and therfore allows us to look at them as completely stone cold killers, who are uncaring people.

And more so with Neri than Luca.

By the time GFII comes around, we have this pre-conceived image of Neri being the man that will kill on behalf of Michael no matter who it is, or how it's done. And that is why I believe that when Michael embraces Fredo at Mama's wake, and gives the "it's ok to kill him now" look to Neri, we finally see a bit of emotion from Neri. I think that it was FFC's way of making us see that even the stone cold killer Neri could not believe how cold and ruthless Michael had become in ordering the murder of his own brother.

FFC finally allowed us to see that Neri, the stone cold killer that we knew, had a bit of compassion in him, even if it was just for that moment, and that Michael didn't.


Don Cardi