ROAD TO PERDITION

Film Four · Drama · 09 Jul 2010 · by: Film 4

Tom Hanks plays Michael Sullivan, a typical 1930s husband with wife Annie (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and two sons, including Mike Sullivan Jnr (Tyler Hoechin). He's also a hitman for gang boss John Rooney (Paul Newman), father to flakehead Connor (Daniel Craig), who's skimming from the takings. When Sullivan confronts Rooney with this information, he unknowingly sets in train a set of events that sees him and Jnr the only survivors of a hit on his family. The pair hit the road with cash stolen from Sullivan's now vengeful employer and the only redemption to come from the elder Sullivan's death in return for his son's life. And on their trail is macabre, pock-faced photographer Maguire (Jude Law), who combines killing with selling exclusive front-page snaps of the scene.

Unlike both revered and recent gangster films, Sam Mendes brings to Road to Perdition the sense of family, both secure and damaged, as he did to American Beauty . Sullivan Snr is an orphan adopted by Rooney who has been bought up to believe killing is no crime, while Rooney himself is both amoral yet a faithful father who will guard blood above friendship. The central performances from Hanks and Newman see the former finally shedding his light persona for one of darkness while the latter gives one of his best performances of recent years and what was subsequently to be one of his last (Newman announced his terirement from acting this year). Mendes' direction is aided by the work of cinematographer Conrad L Hall, who eschews bright, sunny scenes, using instead darkness, rain, shadow and half-caught faces under hat brims to supplement the feeling of a dark dread pulling not just Sullivan but all the characters down a grim yet gripping road to perdition.