Supporting Victims: J.D. Forinash, Joel Fuernsinn, Avinash Honkan, Vineet Honkan,
Erik Lystrad, Sean Marston, Heather Richter, Daniel Sternberg
The year is 1931, the time of the Great Depression and Prohibition. Tom Hanks
plays Michael Sullivan, a devoted father to two sons, Peter (Liam Aiken) and
Michael Jr. (Tyler Hoechlin), and a loving husband to Anne (Jennifer Jason
Leigh). He has a secret he keeps from his sons; that he works as a bodyguard and
hitman for the Irish mob run by John Rooney (Paul Newman). In the early scenes
of the movie, we see Michael approaches his job without any joy or remorse but
with a great deal of professionalism. His employer, John loves Michael and his
sons like family. After we are introduced to the major characters, the story is
allowed to begin when Michael Jr., curious about his father's actual job, hides
in the car and subsequently witnesses a murder and his father gunning down the
victim's bodyguards.
This movie is based on a graphic novel by the same name by Max Allan Collins and
Richard Rayner. The director Sam Mendes, the director of American
Beauty, chose to film it in a similar manner. Each shot and scene is
carefully and artfully composed. Light, shadows, and color frame and accentuate
the dialogue and the action. This is the perfect fusion of the graphic novel and
cinema. There's nothing gratuitous in this movie. Every scene and line moves the
story forward. Even the scenes of violence are often only accompanied by Thomas
Newman's poignant music. The story and the characters are simple but very well
developed and extremely well acted. Tom Hanks, in his perpetual role as an
Everyman, plays his character with a quiet understatement and muted emotions.
Tyler Hoechlin in his first role in a major movie does an excellent job in
playing the brooding teenage boy (12 years old in the movie) wanting the love of
his father but not knowing how to earn or ask for it. Then there's Paul Newman
who made these sorts of movies famous and shows us here that he still has the
skills of a master actor. Rounding out the cast are Daniel Craig, as John
Rooney's flawed son, and Jude Law, playing the only truly evil character in the
movie.
This is an excellently crafted movie. It's probably the first one since The
Fellowship of the Ring that I have wanted to see twice while it was still in
theaters. Mostly, I keep repaying scenes in my head from the movie: the opening
scene fading from white to show a boy standing at the shore of a body of water,
the waves quietly lapping at the sand, a group of bodyguards with umbrellas
escorting John Rooney to his car in the rain, a shot of Chicago in the 1930's,
Michael, Sr. walking through a sea of bowler hats, Michael Jr. sitting in a sea
of newspapers, and a room and hallway in light and shadow. Although the story
belongs to the film noir genre where criminals are treated as heroes, it does
not glorify or reward their actions. The movie is really about human issues -
the relationship of fathers and sons, love, and redemption - which makes it an
unusual and welcome addition to the summer movie run.
I give Road to Perdition an 8 on the Good Movie Scale and a 2 on the Bad Movie
Scale (for some small nitpicky bits which require some historical knowledge of
high school football and proper hit man survival behavior).
