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Road to Perdition, a movie so linear you won't need road signs.

In fact, if you were to take a road trip, this would definitely be a bus tour. Drive for 3 hours. Stop for 30 minutes. "Oh look! This is a museum!" Pile back onto the bus, drive another 3 hours to the next locale, ad nauseam.

Tom Hanks' name is too big for a movie like this. From Splash to The Green Mile, he's always been the "good guy". In every sense of the word, he's been a babyface.

The whole movie is based on the fact Tom Hanks is playing a bad guy. It goes to great lengths to portray him as an assassin with a heart of gold. Every scene with Hanks holding a gun has got him lips drawn and brooding, as if killing the person was distasteful, but necessary. It's too much of a cliche. It would have been better if Hanks played it a little more loose, with a little more passion in his chosen craft. And that's the problem. We don't watch the movie to see Hanks character as a badass with a dilemma, instead, we concentrate on the fact Hank's playing someone out of his character niche. Very distracting and not much fun.

Then there's Paul Newman's character. He's supposedly a big time crime boss which everyone loves and fears at the same time. Instead he comes across as a leader of a small town with ties to the mob and nothing more. There's no justification for the bigger families in Chicago to be helping him out so much.

The story itself didn't make much sense either. Look how Hank's character (Sullivan) uses to draw out the man who killed half his family. If you start robbing the mafia, you're not getting away. Period. It's all about respect, (doesn't anyone watch The Soprano's??) and if you mess with their way of income, then you're going to be hunted down and made to sleep with the fishes; even if you give back their money in the end. It's no longer a matter of cash, but if you trifle with the mafia, you're going to be made an example of.

This is not a mob movie, there's not enough ganster-ism in it to be Godfather-esque. It just doesn't work. It's too pretty for its own good. While every shot screams art, it does not integrate into a movie. Nothing's more poignant than when Sullivan kills Newman's character (who's name I can't recall). Newman's henchmen just stand there, shooting into the dark, without even trying to get their boss into the car. This is pretty. Pretty pathethic!

Finally, it was predictable. If you've seen the trailer, and then watched the first thirty seconds of the movie, you know how it'll end. Because ultimately this is an art flick, any dramatic cinematography results in an event. i.e.: When Sullivan is about to be shot, you can just so tell, there's no surprise to it.

The idea of the movie is great, but the actual story was mediocre at best. Compounded by the fact this was a Tom Hanks vehicle, and "from the director of American Beauty", it stank.

....kapish? posted by losir at 11:55 AM