A Trickster Review : Road to Perdition

[The Trickster]

Road to Perdition is director Sam Mendes’ second film (after the wonderful American Beauty). It stars the ever-reliable Tom Hanks (I’m sure I don’t need to tell you who Tom is), veteran Paul Newman (about 100 films) and the youthful talents of Jude Law (A.I., Gattaca).

The Story
Road to Perdition is at heart, a gangster type film. One in which families, driven by powerful men, strive for more power and money through any means necessary, while attempting not to bring the honour and respect of their family name down in the process. This genre of movies has always been a successful one for film makers, with a prime example being Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather series. The question that has been asked, was could Road to Perdition bring something new to this tried and tested formula. The answer is a resounding yes!
The film focuses on a loyal “employee”, named Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks), of the Rooney family (led by a rejuvenated Paul Newman). Sullivan was separated from his father early in life, and had been treated like a son by Rooney. Rooney’s real son Connor is subsequently filled with jealous hate and plots to bring Sullivan’s life, and the lives of his family, to an end. Sullivan is forced into hiding with his son Mike, and becomes an enemy to the family.
From this stage onwards, the film takes us on a fascinating moral journey. One in which we witness Rooney struggling with the realization that his real son is not the man he wants him to be, while the man he is now forced to hunt, is nothing but loyal and worthy to be called family. While all this takes place, Sullivan wishes for nothing more than for his own son to move as far away from the life he has led, as possible.

The Good
Road to Perdition is a fantastic film on all levels. The acting was always going to be great, considering the level of quality onboard. The thing that I find interesting is the way the cast involved are forced to go against their cliché type. Tom Hanks is once again the leading role, but he is by no means a “hero”. His character Sullivan is a criminal himself, a cold man, in whom it is hard to have compassion for. Jude Law has always played charm filled characters that the viewer can’t help but admire, but is now chosen to play the role of a hitman who has no emotional attachment to life, and seeks enjoyment through death. The success of all these transitions proves both the talent of these actors to pull it off, and the ability of the director in only his second film.
Many themes are raised throughout the two hour movie. Some are progressed with subtlety, while others take a more brutal approach. These themes are worked seamlessly into the film and add to the longevity and remembrance factor for the audience.
Finally the look and feel of Road to Perdition is very effective. It is set mostly at night, and even day scenes are rainy and dull. This emits a feeling of darkness and helps to take the viewer to the depths of human morality (something that was perfected in the movie Seven).

The Bad
There is not much to report here. I guess if I’m going to be pedantic, I did find the ending slightly predictable. With about twenty minutes to go, I knew what was going to take place at the end. I think one of the reasons that I thought it would end the way it did though, was that it was the logical ending for the themes involved, so it’s hard to complain. Also, I guess as the film goes on, and the death count rises, it becomes slightly more difficult to stay emotionally attached to the proceedings. This movie doesn’t hold back in the blood department, and therefore loses the family film label quite early on.

Conclusion
It is obvious that I find Road to Perdition to be a great film. I won’t be surprised to see it clean up a few Oscar nominations and I’m certain it will still be talked about in future film discussions. It’s another film that, although not always an enjoyable experience, is an emotional and intelligent one at all times, and worthy of your attention.

9 out of 10.

[Yorick]

Cool. Thanks Ben. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Bristowe]

Cool, I'm looking fwd to seeing this ;P

[johnny]

Sounds good, when did this movie come out ?

[the sauceman]

Mid July, I think...
I cant wait to see this movie, Ive been trying to all year, but I never seem to have money when I want to see it. =(

[Timber Loftis]

I think you point out good things about the acting. Jude Law's performance was chilling. I did find the plot a little predictable though.

[Barry the Sprout]

I only had two real problems with this film, one is really not all that big either.

The first (the big one) is that Michael Sullivan isn't evil enough. He isn't a typical hero, as you said, but simply by nature of being the main character the film promotes a huge amount of sympathy for him. The idea is obviously supposed to be that he is really an evil man, but doesn;'t want his son to turn out the same. The film falls some way wide of the mark on this count. For me it only portrayed him as a man who had done bad things and was suffering for them, trying hard to save his son from his own life and therefore managed to redeem himself almost. Even down to the fact that Sullivan won't "see heaven" throughout the film he is portrayed as just having a raw deal and not being given the chance to redeem himself. I think Mendes didn't do this deliberately, which is what really makes it a problem.

The second problem is that pretty much every scene has a huge orchestral score. Its all very nice, but it gets a bit samey. Just a few quite, yet significant, moments... its not too much to ask for is it...