Road To Perdition (2002)

Starring: Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jude Law
Director: Sam Mendes

Rating: R

Studio: DreamWorks SKG

Review Posted: 7.19.02

Spoilers: Minor

Rating: 2/4 (C)

By Craig Younkin.

Tom Hanks is a great actor. He's so good in fact that he can even evoke a stunningly powerful relationship between himself and a volleyball. His performances are exceptional, but even he can't overcome the stiffness that director Sam Mendes has shed over this whole film. What he gives us here is a movie that seems to have all sorts of artistic greatness, but as a whole, is just emotionally flat.

The film is about hitman Michael Sullivan (Hanks), who works for a mob boss named John Rooney (Paul Newman). Sullivan has a wife (Jennifer Jason Lee) and two sons, both of which are curious as to what dad does for a living. The eldest son, also named Michael, finds out one night when he slips into the back of his dad's car, which is headed toward a secret meeting at a warehouse.

The young kid follows his dad inside, where he sees a bloody murder taking place. His father then realizes his son is in the room, and so swears him to secrecy in the hopes that his partner Connor (a movie stealing Daniel Craig), who is also John Rooney's son, will spare his life.

That unfortunately is not a chance Connor his willing to take anyway, as he orders a hit on Sullivan's entire family. When the smoke clears, the only two left standing are the two Michael's, who high tail it to Chicago in the hopes of starting a new life down there. Michael Sr. knows a man named Frank Nitti (Stanley Tucci), who he hopes will give him a  job. But instead Frank is with the Rooney's on this one, and so he hires a photographer by day, murderer by night named Maguire (Jude Law), who isn't much for hygiene or talk.

Director Mendes makes sure to make the gun sounds extra loud here, probably to keep the audience awake. Road to Perdition is a long and slow film that uses many dramatic elements which lack meaning and impact. Besides a scene in which Hanks teaches the kid how to drive a car, the two seem distant and uncomfortable with one another. We get no genuinely emotional scene between these two, and so the bond the movie seems to be trying to promote is instantly broken already.

There is also a revenge plot here, in which Michael plans on getting retribution for his family. Only the problem with this is that Michael is a boring, anti-social human being who never seemed to care about them even when they were alive. Then there is also the pure Hollywood subplot of Michael becoming more human, or in other words, making the transition from dirty gangster to respectable human being. That subplot is handled with very little care, and so you never really know what Michael Sullivan is by the end of the film.

Road to Perdition gets a great performance from Paul Newman, a monotonous and dull one from Tom Hanks, and an absolutely dreadful one from child actor Tyler Hoechlin. There are a few suspenseful scenes here and the cinematography is something to be proud of, but overall I just didn't think this movie had any dramatic backbone whatsoever. It has a good premise and a wide variety of super weapons to choose from, but only it just squanders it all away.

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