Never. No way. As hot headed as Sonny was, he would have never planned out and ordered the death of his own brother. He had a heart. Somewhere along the line Michael lost his.


I disagree. Remember how he went after Fredo at the surprise party when Fredo sided with Mike!

That was just sibling expression within the context of sibling relationships. Sonny would never have done it.

And I'll never agree with the idea of a brother conspiring with a rival against his Don, who happens to be his own brother, knowing full well the deadly business they were in, admittedly for his own personal gain.

Simple minded as he may have been, Fredo wasn't a half-wit. He was responsible for his own actions. He would've known full well upon agreeing to work with Roth/Ola that...even WITHOUT the attempted hit...his life was worthless if Michael found out.

And it's true...anyone who refuses to understand this wouldn't make a very good Don. (But then, who among us would...???)

Oh, and by the way...in that fishing boat, at the end...Fredo didn't know what was coming.

Apple

Not that it would've happened the same way, but had Fredo done to Sonny what he eventually did to Michael...Sonny would've beat the crap out of Fredo and THEN ordered his death, even if he didn't pull the trigger himself. And he probably would NOT have had the patience to wait until their mother was no longer alive.

Cold & calculating has he had become, Michael had a reasonable amount of heart...even after Fredo broke it.

Apple

Actually, by naming Michael his successor over Fredo while still alive, which of course was the right thing to do (That's the way pop wanted it...), Vito DID initiate and plant the seed of Fredo's resentment toward Michael. The least of Vito's concerns would've been that Fredo should one day be Don.

All he probably would've asked was that Fredo be 'taken care of', included in as much as he could possibly handle. Which was exactly what Michael did. Whether it was meeting people at the airport or running some Mickey Mouse joint, Fredo was given work to do within the Family and most likely on a payroll & provided very well for by his brother. Someone as 'simple' as this should've been very grateful and happy with what he had.

After Vito's death, Michael had a powerful Mafia Family to run. Not being the same man as his father, he did all he could in terms of handling Fredo. The idea of 'spending more time with his brother' throughout all this is frankly, absurd. Nothing Michael did warranted the resentment and selfish betrayal to the extent Fredo acted.

No matter how you slice it...Fredo deserved what he got. You can certainly feel sorry for him as a stupid human being who got
taken advantage of and was in WAY over his head...but after all is said & done he had to go.

Apple

No he didn't he thought he'd say "Amen" and catch a big fish.

God! Did any of your siblings live after you were born?

Keep in mind, Vito included Fredo in the meeting with Solozzo, and it wasn't Fredo who blew the meeting.

You're point being?

Well, that was what, 13-14 years before the events of GF II?

A lot more water had gone under the bridge since then.

Obviously Vito thought Fredo was at least minimally competent at the time of the Solozzo meeting, competent enough to let him serve as "bodyguard" (even if only briefly) during the absence of Paulie, thus entrusting his life to him (and almost getting killed as a result).

When Vito is lying on the curb, critically wounded, what does Fredo do? Sit down on the curb and collapse into tears.

From that moment on, Vito knew Fredo could never be trusted to handle anything really significant.

What finally tore it for Michael was Fredo's outburst in the boathouse ("I was passed over," etc etc), but worse than that, he also feeds Michael a line of BS about the Senate committee and Questadt (which Michael KNOWS is BS), at that point Michael decides Fredo is still trying to snow him, and he has to go.

Maybe, if Fredo had come to Michael completely contrite, apologized for what he did wrong, and NOT fed him bullcrap information, Michael might have decided Fredo could be allowed to live, as long as he was stashed somewhere he couldn't cause trouble.

But even after Fredo knows Michael has found him out, he knows all about the deal with Ola and Roth, he still tries to snow him, he isn't going to change his tune. Fredo signed his own death warrant with his "I was passed over!!" temper tantrum.

Fredo said, "The got Pentangeli," and "That Senate lawyer, Questadt, belongs to Roth." What was BS about that?

Ultimately fredo was dumb and got manipulated easily by Roth and Ola. You can blame Mike and Vito for not treating Fredo right (which i have done in the past) but now come to think of it its Fredo that messed up big time.

Even if fredo was planning against Mike he was realy sloppy. The boathouse meeting showed that Fredos motivation was all emotion and no reason.

Fredo was trully a dumbwitted boy who was in the wrong family.

I thought that twice he didnt know it was gonna be a hit

Although I think he really knew one of the two times.

Nothing's BS about it, but it's more or less common knowledge, and Michael wants Fredo to tell him something he doesn't already know.