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| Road to Perdition review by David Richards |
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 | | | Tyler Hoechlin delivers an Oscar-caliber performance in Road to Perdition. |
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Grade: A -
Think for a second, what it would be like to be a 12-year-old boy, sitting among a room full of strangers in the lobby of a Chicago business office, knowing that your mother and brother had just been killed and your father is employed by the mafia and wanted by the same people he works for.
That's what happens in one scene in Road to Perdition and after the kid thinks about what has just happened to him, he breaks down crying, with nobody there to console him.
The film, one of the year's best, isn't about the mob as much as it is about the relationships the people in the mob have with members of their immediate family.
It's only a matter of time, the picture suggests, before a son or a daughter finds out just what his or her father does for a living and, when that day comes, the result could put that young person's own life in jeopardy.
Tom Hanks stars as Michael Sullivan, a respected member of the Chicago mafia who has gotten in pretty tight with the big boss John Rooney (Paul Newman).
Rooney is powerful and seems to love Sullivan as a son until the 12-year-old boy mentioned earlier, who happens to be Michael Sullivan Jr. (played by Tyler Hoechlin in an Oscar-caliber role), witnesses a mob shooting one evening.
Sullivan thinks it will be O.K., though.
He's had a talk with Michael Jr. to swear to secrecy about what he saw, but when Connor Rooney, son of John, begins calling the shots, Sullivan's wife (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and youngest son pay the price, leaving the two Michaels on a run for their lives.
Sullivan's goal is to reach Perdition, where a relative lives, but his journey is made complicated when a strange mafia hit man (Jude Law) joins the chase and is out to get the father and son duo.
Road to Perdition is a violent film. It's also dark, cold and unforgiving. But what makes the film so good and worth sitting through is the delicate way the creators handle the relationship between Hanks and Hoechlin.
Hoechlin and Newman steal the show in Road to Perdition, but unfortunately, Hanks has probably been miscast.
He is convincing in his scenes with Hoechlin and many others as well, but when it comes to holding and firing a gun, Hanks seems to lack confidence. I had a hard time believing that Hanks was a high-end member of the mafia. To me, he just looked like an actor trying to pull off a couple of violent action sequences.
Other than that one miscast, Road to Perdition succeeds in almost every other way. It's very much worthy of all the pre-Oscar hype it has been receiving.
**** Rated R for violence and language |
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