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HugeReviews.com Reviews:
On
Road to Perdition
by Michael Flanagan
HUGE
Sam Mendes’ second directorial gig, Road to
Perdition, is a beautiful, layered movie.
I saw it a week ago, and haven’t been able to figure out a way
to describe why it’s wonderful. Although
it’s not the best movie ever made, if there could even be a category
for such a thing, it is the story of a journey, told in intervals more
complex than simple scenes. It
is a silent movie, but every line of dialogue is absolutely necessary.
It is a series of paintings brought to life.
Watching the film is like looking through a window…or a photo
album…or walking in an antique store.
Based on a graphic novel, Road to Perdition is possibly
the best image-based film adopted from the comic book medium.
Every moment of the movie shapes it.
If Mendes had stood there with me watching it, and had stopped
the movie at fifteen-minute intervals and asked what I thought, I would
have had a different answer for the entire two hours.
At first it was just great scenery and atmosphere.
Then it became amazement at two grand actors (playing the
piano!), as well as shock at the detail of the story, right down to the
dripping ice around the casket. Then,
pure joy at the little jazz club with the guard at the door, trying to
put in an application to be a mobster.
Simply great.
Later it became stomach-twisting horror equally
matched with disbelief at the beauty of the murder scene, young Michael
slowly turning, stepping into the light of what we know is in the
bathroom. The following
fifteen minutes I would be unsure of, since Hanks’ scream from
upstairs sent a frozen shock down my spine.
And then there was even more shock, as I expected the Hanks
redemption, end-the-killing-type story. Instead, I sat there thinking
“he’s not going to kill the messenger.
Not that guy. Nah. He
wouldn’t—he killed him!” At
that moment, I officially loved the movie.
Not as a celebratory eye for an eye feeling, but out of sitting
there, knowing that I was looking at something real.
This is not a summer blockbuster; this is a cold, cold story.
By the time it became a road movie, I was deeply in
love, leaning forward, not sure what had happened or would happen, but
eating as much of what was currently happening as is possible. Then there is the scene in the diner that any self-proclaimed
movie fan should immediately refer to as the “Heat scene.”
Amazing, brilliant, and just 3 major appearances: Jude Law, Tom
Hanks, and that bead of sweat when Hanks finally fully realizes what we
all know. That was the last
moment I remember watching the movie. After that scene, I was fully immersed. This was a hell of a story, and I followed it almost as a
participant.
And the ending.
Oh, the ending. What
finally wraps up the movie as something completely different than anyone
could have thought it would be, even though you know exactly what will
happen from the beginning. The
scene in which it went from any possible mumblings of “this reminds me
of Shawshank” to literal cries from people in the theater.
The movie knocks you out of its white, blood-stained room and
leaves you with a message in an image.
And it’s not a political message—politics can’t bear that
much emotion.
Road to Perdition is a story of fathers and
sons, both in the literal sense and in the spiritual. The quintessential moment is unfortunately in the trailer.
I hated that I had seen it before when it came.
I despised knowing what Newman was about to say.
Paraphrased, he says, “This is the life we lead.
There is only one guarantee: none of us will see Heaven.” Hanks responds: “Michael could.”
Visually heart stopping, painfully tender, and
tenderly painful, Road to Perdition is an age old story, a
golden-age movie, and a reminder of what we’ve been going to the
movies to see.
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