ROAD TO PERDITION – Tom Hanks, Paul Newman
Road to Perdition (2002)
Director: Sam Mendes
Screenplay: David Self; from Max Allan Collins and Richard Piers Rayner’s graphic novel
Cast: Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jude Law, Tyler Hoechlin, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stanley Tucci, Daniel Craig, Dylan Baker, Ciarán Hinds, Liam Aiken
British director Sam Mendes won an Academy Award for his first film, American Beauty, released in 1999. Three years later, for his second film, Road to Perdition, Mendes once again relied on the assistance of cinematographer Conrad L. Hall and composer Thomas Newman to create another stylized look at dysfunctional American families. But instead of 1990s suburbia, Road to Perdition throws us into the warped universe of a Depression-era Midwestern town, a place where family values include loyalty, faith, extortion, and murder.
The film begins with a teenager reminiscing about the winter of 1931, a time when he and his father were on the run from a hired killer and assorted gangsters.
Things had been better earlier, when Michael Sullivan (an Angel of Death figure played by a stolid-faced Tom Hanks) worked as a hitman for Irish mafia boss John Rooney (Paul Newman). Sullivan, in fact, had been raised by Rooney and loved the old man as if he were his own father. But it all changed for the worse after 12-year-old Michael Sullivan, Jr. (Tyler Hoechlin), sneaked into his father’s car and witnessed Rooney’s biological son, Connor (Daniel Craig, a carbon copy of early MGM star Lee Tracy), kill a man at point blank. The psychopathic Connor decides to get rid of the young witness, but ends up killing the boy’s mother and younger brother instead.
More murders are to follow as the bereaved Sullivan becomes obsessed with extracting revenge. All the while, he must keep running one step ahead of a bloodthirsty photographer (an appropriately creepy Jude Law) and handle the organized crime bosses who want to protect the stability of their business dealings.
Considering all the spilled family blood, Road to Perdition — inspired by the lives of organized crime boss John Looney and his son Connor — has the makings of a great modern tragedy, a promise that goes unfulfilled because of a screenplay filled with plot holes (e.g., Connor doesn’t know — nor does he apparently care about — which Sullivan boy he murders) and clichés (e.g., farm life is good; urban life is evil).
On the positive side, Mendes and Hall (who received a posthumous Academy Award for his work in this film) do create some brilliant atmospheric shots, such as a dreamlike massacre on a rainy night that is as powerful as it is unrealistic, while the film’s period reconstruction is for the most part quite impressive. (The phony speakeasy-cum-bordello sequence is a glaring exception.)
As a plus, Road to Perdition offers what may well be Paul Newman’s greatest performance. Had the other actors been given as many good lines as Newman — "Natural law. Sons are put on this earth to trouble their fathers" — and extracted as much out of them as Newman does, this average thriller would have gotten considerably closer to the great tragedy it aims to be.
Academy Award Win
Best Cinematography: Conrad L. Hall
5 Academy Award Nominations
Best Supporting Actor: Paul Newman
Best Art Direction: Dennis Gassner (art director), Nancy Haigh (set decorator)
Best Original Score: Thomas Newman
Best Sound: Scott Millan, Bob Beemer, John Pritchett
Best Sound Editing: Scott Hecker
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Tags: Conrad L. Hall, Crime Movies, Daniel Craig, Film Reviews, Jude Law, Oscar 2002, Oscar Movies, Paul Newman, Road to Perdition, Sam Mendes, Thomas Newman, Tom Hanks, Tyler Hoechlin
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