Great Film: Road to Perdition
A true masterpiece
Road to Perdition, a movie undeservedly overlooked at that year Oscars
is the second work of Sam Mendes (and in my opinion his best work), a
director who three years before won Oscar for his widely acclaimed but
controversial American Beauty. This is a terrific movie, and at the
same time ultimately poignant and sad.
It's a story of a relatively wealthy and happy family from outward
appearance during difficult times of Depression when the, Michael
Sullivan, a father of two children, played by great Tom Hanks (I'm not
his admirer but ought to say that) is a hit-man for local mafia boss,
played by Paul Newman. His eldest son, a thirteen years boy Michael
Sullivan Jr., perfectly played by young Tyler Hoechlin, after years of
blissful ignorance finds out what is his father job and on what money
their family live. Prompted by his curiosity and his aspiration to know
truth he accidentally becomes a witness of a murder, committed by John
Rooney, son of his father boss. Such discovery strikes an innocent soul
and it caused numerous events that changed his life forever. The
atmosphere of the period, all the backgrounds and decorations are
perfectly created, editing and cinematography are almost flawless while
the story is well written. But the main line of the movie, the most
important moments and points of the movie and the key factor of the
movie success are difficult father-son relations in bad times. They are
shown so deeply, strong and believable. Tom Hanks does excellent and
has one of the best performances of his career in a quite unusual role
for him and all acting across the board is superb. Finally worth to
mention a very nice score by Paul Newman and in the result we get an
outstanding work of all people involved in making this beautiful (but
one more time sad) masterpiece. I believe Road to Perdition belongs to
greatest achievements of film-making of this decade and undoubtedly one
of the best films of the year.
My grade 10 out of 10
Cast
- Michael Sullivan played by Tom Hanks
- Peter Sullivan played by Liam Aiken
- Annie Sullivan played by Jennifer Jason Leigh
- Connor Rooney played by Daniel Craig
- Finn McGovern played by Ciarán Hinds
- Michael Sullivan Jr. played by Tyler Hoechlin
- Drugstore Owner played by Rob Maxey
