|
|
|
Road to Perdition
Sam Mendes - Director/Producer
With the stock market crashing and burning and suicide bombers attacking America, the world’s not a pretty place right now.
If you think you’ve got problems, be glad you’re not Tom Hanks in Road to
Perdition, No. 1 at the box office last week. In his world, his boss’ greedy
son murders his wife and son, then puts out a Mob contract for him and his
firstborn. Raw intelligence and an unequivocal desire for revenge let Hanks
outwit them all … almost.
This is a movie about the relationships between fathers and sons … the good, the bad and the ugly. Paul Newman, who plays a Godfather-like character,
announces, “Sons are put on earth to trouble their fathers.” This lament
throbs through the movie like a heartbeat.
The Road to Perdition is the best movie I’ve seen all year. If you like the
Soparanos, you’ll like this one.
Some reasons why:
- It takes place in 1939. The clothes, cars, capers – you viscerally feel the Capone era in Chicago. The mob owning the Catholic Church is the only audience laugh.
- Watch Paul Newman, Tom Hanks and Jude Law, consummate actors all, excel at their craft.
Hanks plays a hitman, the antithesis of his benevolent jailer in The Green Mile, another of my favs. Even though he’s a cold blooded killer, Hanks still manages to display his usual dignity and decency as a family man. Unlike Tony, a lumbering boor who obsesses about his job, Hanks is a stern, taciturn killer who loves his job … but doesn’t want his son to follow in his footsteps.
Jude Law represents consummate evil, a coiling serpent always ready to strike. I got cold shivers watching him.
Paul Newman is a ferocious hawk with a thunderous temper. The 77 year old actor displays anguish awesomely.
- Watching the artistic evolution of director Sam Mendes, who won an Academy Award for “American Beauty,” (He got famous directing Nicole Kidman’s nude scene in a play called “the Blue Room” on Broadway. No nudity here). He teams up with Conrad Hall, the American Beauty cinematographer famous for his red roses. Great visuals.
Interesting tidbits: One of the tensest scenes in the movie is when Jude Law and Tom Hanks first face off at the fictitious Englewood Diner. The original 1941 diner was sitting in Massachusetts when DreamWorks spotted it on eBay. The company bought it for $35,000 online and trucked it to Illinois for the movie. After the filming, a Maine restaurateur bought it and plans to open the Down East Diner this fall.
Road to Perdition, like Spider-Man, is a movie adaptation of a comic book.
Writer Max Collins started out writing the Dick Tracy comics.
Who should see this movie: Tom Hanks fan. Cinema buffs. Gangster fans. If you need wild car chases like in the Bourne Identity, this movie will be too sleepy for you.
If you need to some Tom Hanks feel good stuff, here are my two suggestions:
- Turner and Hootch (great St. Bernard as co-star) and his first movie with Meg Ryan
- Joe versus the Volcano.
Night Out Las Vegas' Other Reviews -
» Restaurant Reviews
» Movie Reviews
» Battle of the Buffets
» The Show Girl
» Quick Bites
» Awesome Austin's Young & Happenin'
» On The Town
|
