Movie Reviews

In Road to Perdition, Tom Hanks plays Michael Sullivan, a 1930's mob hitman whose twelve-year old son one day decides to sneak along on one of his jobs. When the mob boss John Rooney (Paul Newman) finds out that the boy knows what his father does for a living, it's decided that Sullivan must be gotten rid -- a tricky situation considering that Rooney has been something of a surrogate father to Sullivan. Sullivan and his son escape to Chicago and attempt to "straighten things up" (mainly by eliminating all of the people he used to work with), all the while being pursued by a slightly-twisted killer-for-hire played by Jude Law.

I think the premise of the story is pretty interesting. Most of the main characters are put in fairly complex situations, with, for example, Rooney deciding that Sullivan must be killed, and Sullivan deciding that he can only get out of the situation by killing everyone he worked for and with, and having to protect his son, whome he'd never really had much of a relationship with. The film does a decent job with a lot of this stuff, though I did feel at times that it could've done even more, which would've maybe helped out in a couple of spots where the movie seemed to drag just a little bit.

In some respects the Tom Hanks character might be partly responsible. For much of the movie, Hanks plays Sullivan as very reserved, and a little cold (quite different from a lot of the characters that Hanks has played before). That's not really a valid complaint though, I suppose, because considering his character's profession, it makes a lot of sense. There are moments, however, when Hanks's acting abilities really shine through, and we're able to see some subtle complexities and emotion in Sullivan's otherwise un-emotive character.

The famous cinematographer Conrad Hall (recently deceased) won an Academy Award this year for his work on Road to Perdition. There are definitely some brilliantly-photographed scenes here, too, particularly one involving a nighttime, rain-drenced shootout. The production and costume design is excellent as well, with various things such as tommy-guns, trenchcoats. and Model-T's really evoking the era of the Great Depression.

Road to Perdition isn't as good as director Sam Mendes's previous film American Beauty, but it's still pretty good, and I enjoyed it.