The Last Don, also known as Mario Puzo’s The Last Don, is a 1997 American crime drama television miniseries directed by Graeme Clifford and written by Joyce Eliason, based on the 1996 novel The Last Don by Mario Puzo. It aired on CBS in three parts, on May 11, 13 and 14, 1997.[1][2][3][4] It was followed by a sequel the next year, The Last Don II.[5] It follows a fictional Mafia crime family, the Clericuzios, and their multigenerational struggle to hold onto power.
I read the novel a while back, and didn’t even know there was a show. I thought the novel was OK - not Great Literature, but it was worth a re-read at some point. The show does a decent job of adapting the novel, but of course the big problem is comparisons to The Godfather. (to be fair, Mario Puzo wrote both of these, so he’s not really ripping himself off, when he uses a lot of the same tropes, right?) Danny Aiello and Joe Mantegna do their best, but they are no Marlon Brando or Al Pacino, and as a TV movie the production standards are just going to be lower. The rest of the casting is all over the place: Daryl Hannah and Kirstie Alley… well, they try. It’s kind of fun to see the violent cop from Law & Order play a crazed guy. And k.d. lang as a film director. OK, this series is not very good. However, it is a useful contrast to The Godfather, to really appreciate why that is such an acclaimed movie, and how easy it is to make something that is not as good.