| ROAD TO PERDITION |
 2002 –
USA
Director: Sam Mendes - Reviewed by Dan
You know these two actors could carry almost any movie, but team them with hotshot director Sam Mendes (still riding high from his American Beauty Oscar win) and failure becomes a near non-possibility. I’m glad to tell you that American Beauty was no fluke. Mendes’ sophomore effort, Road to Perdition, proves to be rich both visually and emotionally. It’s the early 1930s. Depression and prohibition are in full swing and jobs are hard to come by, unless you happen to be hooked up with the Irish mafia. One rainy night, curious young Michael Sullivan Jr. (Tyler Hoechlin) discovers his father (Hanks) has done just that. John Rooney (Newman) is the elder Sullivan’s boss, and although he loves him like a son, he also knows that dead men (and boys) tell no tales. This puts our heroes on the road as they attempt to escape certain execution. Sounds like typical gangster fare, but this film focuses just as much on the elusive dynamic that exists between fathers and sons as it does guns and goons. The movie is violent and macho but also deeply moving—at least a two hankie film for those inclined to engage in public waterworks. I saw a LOT of running mascara on my way out of the theater. Sam Mendes builds emotional tension so well (his directorial experience in the theater translates gorgeously to the screen) that a hand slammed on a table made me jump and cower in my seat, while machine guns fired in silence induced tears. Hoechlin holds his own against two of the greatest actors ever filmed. In fact, he’s way better than tolerable. This is high praise from me, considering the damaging effect Jake Lloyd (Phantom Menace) has had on my opinion of child actors. (Maybe the culprit is really George Lucas’ bad judgment in that case, but I’ve become overly aware and wary of pre-pubescent people on the screen. What did W.C. Fields say about kids and pets?) But this boy can act, and thankfully Mendes never relies on him for kewpie-doll, sad-eyed, stuffed-animal cuteness. It’s easy to forget about team effort when you’re dazzled by acting and directing like this, but I’m thinking there will be several categories at the Oscars that will fall to this film, including costume, set design (more realistic and less stylized than The Untouchables), and even musical score. I will be shocked if Conrad Hall (American Beauty) doesn’t win for best cinematography. There are some wonderfully memorable shots in this movie, and the camera is almost always quietly moving in some artful way. Even the grain of the film feels textured as though it exists just this side of a Norman Rockwell painting. I’m withholding one pie slice because of the madly grotesque character portrayed by Jude Law. Always intense, he actually vamps his way through all his scenes in Perdition. It’s out of place in a movie that’s not about one-dimensional creepiness (although he certainly portrays that well). Road to Perdition relies more on the subtleties and depth of human feeling. How often can you say THAT about a gangster flick? |
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Tom Hanks AND Paul Newman? So go already.
