The titanic gauntlet of following-up the astonishing �American Beauty� must have provided enough sleepless nightmares for Sam Mendes to enable him to churn out some classy horror movies in future years, surely. Yet �THE ROAD TO PERDITION,� despite being a way over-long road, does get there in style. Starring Tom Hanks, whose name you find below the �epic movie� definition in every common-or-garden dictionary (he loves them, just take �Castaway,� �Saving Private Ryan� & �Forrest Gump�), and Brit Jude Law as a good bad baddie, the attention to gangster-period detail is flawless and some set-pieces unforgettable. A near-masterpiece, you�d think Hanks would be so proud of his acting talents that he�d love to watch his movies over and over again, yet he admits it himself that watching movies he is in simply �pains him,� and that he just likes to watch it once to see how the director has inter-cut each facet of the movie to make it a satisfying whole. Director Sam Mendes, of uber-talented British stock, flushed more twists into his American Beauty�s high morality tale than the Italians do into Pasta strips, and so the pressure was on this time round to end this gripping story in unpredictable style. It isn�t a happy ending put it that way, just like it doesn�t seem as though it�s going to be for a close personal friend of mine who is currently dieting himself silly� with only �The Road To Malnutrition� beckoning. (STEVE RUDD)