Arianna Moses
Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
merelyaninnuendo
Road To Perdition3 And A Half Out Of 5Road To Perdition is a character driven dramatic thriller about a relationship between a father and a son which is brewed at a critical stage and higher stakes. Despite of portraying an essential chapter or episode of a young kid, the writing wisely accounts in the bonding of him with his father from the scratch. And it is so well fed to the audience that despite of its dark tone and poignant theme, there is a cathartic experience on each tiny moments of them. One of the primary strengths of the feature is its uncertainty and unexpected outcome that it evaluates keeping the audience tangled in its world where the sense of urgency too factors in a lot. Each supporting character gets enough range and space to factor in and work effectively which shows how the makers were chewing the characters properly and were not in any rush. The costumes designing is out of the park and so is the finely detailed production design but what draws in most of the attention is the metaphorical cinematography that is just pure passion throughout the course of it. An elevating background score, glorifying camera work and perfect editing are too some of its rich details. The writing is simple as it can be but sensible and justifying as you've never seen. Mendes; the director, at the heart of it, has done a tremendous work on executing such a balanced feature. Hanks has never been more impactful with a excellent support from Newman, Craig and Law. Jaw dropping visuals, whistle-blowing dialogues and a heartbreaking chemistry are the high points of the feature that makes you look twice. Road To Perdition is more salvation than damnation since it has such a risky tone to explore at let along triumph over it; a masterstroke by the makers.
NateWatchesCoolMovies
Sam Mendes's Road To Perdition reads like Oscar bait on the surface, but it's anything but once it gets down to business. Based on a downbeat graphic novel, it's a dark and tragic downward spiral of violence, betrayal and crime with beautifully acted characters and burnished, shadowy cinematography that brings the pages of the book to life in moody, snow blanketed detail. Tom Hanks, taking a chance and playing a rougher character for once in his goody two shoes career, is Michael Sullivan, enforcer for small town Irish mob boss John Rooney, played with force and feeling by Paul Newman in his final cinematic outing. Rooney treats Sullivan like a son, as his own offspring (Daniel Craig, cast way against type and loving it) is an insidious, hateful psychopath. After Craig needlessly murders a subordinate (Ciaran Hinds) and Sullivan's youngest son (Taylor Hoechlin, excellent) inadvertently witnesses it, Sullivan is left no choice but to go on the run after his wife (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and youngest child (Liam Aiken) are subsequently slaughtered. The rift that forms between Hanks and Newman is tough to watch, a paternal relationship soured by the ugliness of the lives they live, violence finding its way in and grabbing hold of any goodness that once was, like it always does. Forced to seek help from infamous Chicago gangster Frank Nitti (Stanley Tucci), Sullivan soon finds himself on his own and fast becoming a vigilante with a short life span amongst the underworld, especially when a dangerous assassin (a rodent like Jude Law) is dispatched to kill him. Sullivan knows his way around both a pistol and a tommy gun though, and won't go down in a hail without raising hellfire first. There's a calmness to the action scenes, the most hectic of which is accompanied by no sound effects whatsoever, just simply a lyrical piece of the score, cushioning the violence with mood instead of hammering us with the sound of bullets. It's a revenge piece, no doubt, but it's also a careful treatise on how a parent's actions and choices can affect their young, and in cases of extreme peril or trauma, sometimes bring them closer together where there once was distance. My only real issue with the film is the casting of Jennifer Jason Leigh, a unique, mesmerizing force on camera whose talents are wasted here in the throwaway wife role, getting to do basically nothing. There's a deleted scene featuring Anthony Lapaglia as lively Al Capone, which is not in the final film but can be found on YouTube. Hanks and Newman anchor the film respectively, as hard, determined men who would rather see things go in a more agreeable way, but have both left each other no choice other than willfully striding towards bitter ends. There's an eerie poetry in that which the film captures perfectly.
localbum24-1
I've never really understood the acclaim for this film and was reminded as to why this evening. There was huge hype when it came out, exclusively because it was Hanks at the peak of his fame matched with the legend of Paul Newman. But a great one-two punch means nothing when the story is bland and cliché. And for that matter, Tom Hanks couldn't be less believable as a gangster. Road to Perdition has simply always been overrated.
