If you think about it, its really ridiculous to think that Michael would approve the Hyman Roth hit plan if he knew that Rocco himself was to be the shooter. Here's a man, in his mid 40's, with a bad leg, who is widely known as a Corleone top man, trying to carry out a high profile assassination in broad daylight on a man who's flanked by FBI agents, in an airport of all places.
The reason, I believe, is that he thought the protection of a bullet proof vest would only delay the inevitable.
This made me think of the exact moment when Rocco is shot, you can see him clearly turn towards the shooters, almost as if he is welcoming the bullets. This would back up your theory that he hoped he was going to die there, except for the fact that it was probably shot this way just to make the squibs more visible.
While reading this topic, I kept wondering, could all of this supposed phasing-out of Rocco simply be because the actor, Tom Rosqui, was an older man, and perhaps had health problems or something? He died in 1991, but it just made me think his lack of scenes may have been because of professional reasons, and not story-line reasons.
I also wanted to point out the fact that if Rocco did know what his eventual fate would be at the hands of Michael, did he perhaps take notice of the situation with Pentangali, where his family was taken care of because he sacrificed his life for the family? As far as I know, Rocco was a bachelor with no kids, and he also may have had no knowledge of the situation with Pentangali, as he doesnt seem privy to inside information later in the film, but you never know I guess.
It's kind of interesting that if FFC and Puzo did have intentions of subliminally indicating that Rocco was a traitor, why did they not include
ANY references or scenes indicating this?
Come to think of it, theres not only a lack of a "Rocco-traitor" scene, but Rocco barely has any scenes at all in the middle section of the movie.
I looked it up on the script, and he literally has zero dialogue between the "Where's Mike?" line following the assassination attempt, until way towards the end, when he has one insignificant line in the hotel in Washington, and then his next appearance after that is during the planning of the Roth hit.
Did FFC and Puzo really want to hide Rocco's treachery so deeply that they completely eliminated him from the storyline for most of the film?
Makes you think we may all be looking into this a bit too deeply.
