Review: Road to Perdition

By SKillBot on 2002-07-30 16:02:22

In anticipation of a great movie, I walked into the theatre churning memories of American Beauty in my mind. I wanted more of the same - the beautiful scenes, characters so real that they command your attention without any unnecessary distractions, and a story that's both imaginative and coherent. This exercise whetted my appetite nicely, and I was very pleased.

An adaptation of the graphic novel written by Max Allan Collins, the title is very descriptive of the plot, even in a literal sense so as to thicken the symbolism. I won't go into much detail here - it's basically a prohibition era gangster movie a la The Untouchables, but with an emphasis more on the personal family of a hitman, and how his work affects his children. More specifically, it's about the bond between a father and son with the pressures of reality, and the hopes of making a good life.

I'll jump on the boat with other reviewers here and say that Conrad L. Hall has really outdone himself with the cinematography. At all times, you are looking at images that immerse you in the scene. Almost all the indoor shots are dark with lighting used to emphasize the relevant characters and objects in the scene. This has a great effect of illuminating the gangsters with a grim glow in the darkness of the Great Depression.

On that note, the acting is simply perfect. Tom Hanks plays a fatherly thug whose sense of duty is as strong for his work as it is for his famliy. Yet, these two forces are mutually exclusive and the stress of being caught between the two is excellently portrayed. As for the other characters,
Jude Law plays an amazing role as a ghoulish photographer who serves as a gifted hitman. Paul Newman plays a wonderfully charismatic mob boss who plays a great role in the plot through his careful judgement and unfortunate predicament. Everyone else (minor roles were NO exception) played their characters flawlessly.

Now then, my complaints are that I couldn't get into the mood of the movie enough because everything was laid on the audience so strongly. There was plenty of gore and violence, but it was all built up to be excessively dramatic - as opposed to more non chalant takes on the theme such as Pulp Fiction. And even despite the marvelous score by Thomas Newman, it was a bit much at times and really distracted me from the cold feel of murder and depression that I wanted to feel. I kept thinking of The Onion's story about Marilyn Manson going door to door to shock people and how they blow him off. I also have to bitch about how the epic closing scene was somewhat ineffective on me due to the distraction of the ocean noises that sounded nothing like what one would expect from what was seen. It was like hearing the roaring laughter of children doing cannon balls while looking at two guys drinking beer in a kiddie pool.

That reminds me, I want to get tipsy and see this movie again so I can enjoy it for everything it's supposed to be.

These are my opinions, and your mileage may very. This is undoubtedly a great piece of work and I would strongly recommend it to anyone who likes American Beauty, 1930's Americana, good cinematography, or Tom Hanks.

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