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A truely genius film, a must see! Great acting and great story! Nuff said, really this film is such an under-appreciated film

This film was partially filmed in the town where I grew up.

tommy gun in ur face!!!!!!!!!!!

This is a great movie. masterpiece... Maybe this comment wont get erased for no reason

xxxxx

One of the films in 2002 that I missed. And boy am I pissed I didn't catch it in the theater!



Great story of revenge with Conrad Hall's final touch of breathtaking cinematograhy! Hanks owns here also, as usual.

**** /****

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DV

...and uninvolving although there were great sights along the way. If I was Mr. Rooney, I had his son killed in the first place, but then, there won't be a story anymore...another movie with a great cast consisting of Paul Newman, Tom Hanks, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law...all of whom seem to have been put to waste with the weak plot and thin characterization...it's not The Godfather, that's for sure...skip this trip!!

Ugh, crappy weather here. It's cold, well, relatively cold for this part of the country.

I just finished watching Road to Perdition on HBO for the umpteenth time and it's still a masterpiece. Seriously, it's one of the best movies I've ever seen, and every time I watch it, I get something new out of it. For those of you with the DVD, Sam Mendes' audio commentary is amazing in its almost literary analytical style: symbolism (the use of water, the change of seasons), the narration of Michael Sullivan Jr., the parallelism between the Sullivan Jr. and Connor Rooney, the character development of Sullivan Sr. (Tom Hanks gives such an underappreciated performance) and the concurrent change in tone, and of course, the themes in the story (father/son relationships, surrogate families). I've always loved movies, but this film really renewed my cinephilia when I saw it for the first time last year. I'm teaching a literature survey course in the spring and I'm adding this one to the lesson plan.

This movie had me checking off situations in my head... the innocent witnessing crimes, the bonding of the 'goodies', the ceremonial removal of the weapon from its case... we even had a de niro/pacino-esque chat over coffee in a diner.

The film does all this well though.

Few films have disappointed me more than Road to Perdition, a crime story about a man who vows revenge for the death of his wife and child. The cause of disappointment was simply the talent of the principal players: Sam Mendes directed the film, his follow-up effort after his debut American Beauty, which is nothing less than my favourite film of all-time. The cast includes Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Jude Law...little else needs to be said. And the cinematography is by the great Conrad Hall, in what would prove to be his last film (Hall died in early 2003). Unfortunately, while Road to Perdition is unquestionably a "well-made" film with high production values and solid acting, something is missing. What is missing, perhaps, is a sense of dramatic conflict: from the beginning of the film, it is quite clear what is going to unfold, and then we watch it unfold. Road to Perdition is similar in nature to a Greek tragedy in which the players are bound by their basic qualities to act in a certain way. The plot involves the discovery of a boy that his father (Hanks) is a hitman for the mafia. After complications concerning a battle for mafia respect lead to the death of Hanks' wife and his other son, Hanks and his surviving son are forced to go on the run. Another assassin played by Jude Law is sent on a mission to track down Hanks and eliminate him, while Hanks sets out trying to avenge his family's murder. This all unfolds with a sense of inevitability, but unfortunately it does not have an element of tragedy to go with its inevitability. Hanks is not particularly convincing...and it's not that he can't play darker roles (he has shown dark elements in Saving Private Ryan and That Thing You Do, for example). And surprisingly, Mendes seems unsure of himself and often finds a poor way of expressing the tone of a particular scene. What Road to Perdition does boast is a cooly elegant visual look and a fantastic performance from Paul Newman as the patriarch of the mafia. When Newman and Hanks play the piano together, we are watching two great actors simply allowing themselves to interact without any external effort. It is a great scene...sadly, it comes in a film not worthy of the performances.

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