Spinoff:John Cazale/Fredo - GOAT movies GFI/II... Was Mike right killing Fredo?

Dude was a traitor and deserved to be shot.

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3. Mike was willing to forgive his brother after the revolution in Cuba. This is when he kisses Fredo and let's him know Fredo was the "traitor". But Michael also calls out for Fredo during the chaos and says, come with me, you're still my brother.

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Why should he have believed Michael? For all his polished manners and Ivy League suits, Michael was just another TPOS like the rest of his family.

Michael was wrong to kill Fredo. That he killed him anyway, even after Fredo repented and was no longer a threat, showed how fallen Mike really was. This is the point of Godfather III, which was Michael looking for redemption that was always just out of reach. Once he went dark, it consumed him. He tried to get out, but it kept pulling him back in. His own demons, he means.

Killing Fredo was when Michael lost all hope of redemption. His brother. His mother's son. In getting revenge for Fredo setting him up, Michael himself becomes the enemy and destroyer of the family that he tried to save. At the end of II he is left contemplating what he has done - alone. At the end of III, he dies alone.

I think that Fredo's murder really was the key to Michael's complete destruction. He never could forgive anything.

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Personally if I were Mike, I would have sent him to Guam and killed him if he ever left there, but make that clear before I sent him there.

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This actually might be the best answer.

He should of sent him away never to return.

Like someone posted earlier, they guy was not a threat at all at the end of 2. He should of just been banished.

Fredo was responsible for what happened in Michael's home. You heard what happened in his home?

IN HIS HOME! IN HIS BEDROOM WHERE HIS WIFE SLEEPS! Where his children come and play with their toys. In his home.

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Yes. Fredo would have always been a dangerous weakness to the family. Too stupid to do anything and too arrogant to be

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This is my feeling. Fredo was a liability. Maybe no longer an immediate threat, but he would always be a liability and could try to harm Michael again one day. The combination of his ineptitude and his craving for more than he had would have gnawed at him once again at some point and he would have become a problem again.

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Fredo did "betray" Michael, but only because he's a fool.

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lolwut? It wasn't a fricking accident. He betrayed him. Fredo had it coming.

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But Fredo would have brought the whole house down on their heads.

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That's why it was justified. Fredo was weak and vulnerable, and outside parties would have continued to try to manipulate him against Michael.

Fredo is the true tragic figure in the Godfather movies. He was a decent if weak-willed man who had no place in organized crime. He was happy being an uncle and taking the kids out on the lake to go fishing. Killing him was the unforgiveable sin that makes Mike completely irredeemable. Once he was frozen out of the family business, he was "dead" for business purposes. Killing him was the greatest evil committed in the movies, as Fredo was out of the business and posed no threat to anyone.

The execution of Fredo is a great moment in the film but I think it was to drive home the point of Michael's evil (or at least utter amorality) had reached its zenith. His last remaining demonstrable moral code was jettisoned (or at least badly compromised) when loyalty to family came into conflict with his ability to remain in power.

JMO but I think this, and Kay aborting his son, were overbearing insertions by Coppola to make sure the audience could not sympathize with Michael as they did in the first film.