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The Road to Perdition

Stop calling Tom Hanks the Jimmy Stewart of our times. For too long Hanks has been pigeonholed as Hollywood?s nice guy, an Everyman who every audience member would love to call friend or family - much like the rep Stewart carried with him to his dying day. While Hanks may be a decent chum to pal around with away from the workplace, over the last decade he has assembled a stellar body of work, surprising in its depth and breadth.

In Road to Perdition, Hanks plays Irish-mob enforcer Michael ?The Angel of Death? Sullivan - no Mr. Nice Guy. Sullivan is a study in contrasts - at home a loving, if distant, father - in the office a vicious pitbull of a killer. One concept unifies bother personas; fierce loyalty.

Sullivan is indebted to John Rooney (Paul Newman), a small town lieutenant and ?community leader?, a tendril in Al Capone?s vast web. Rooney raised Sullivan as a surrogate son and rewarded his loyalty with all the trappings of a normal life - hot food on the table, a modest country home in which to raise a family, fatherly love. Sullivan in turn views Rooney as a study in contrasts. Rooney is the man Sullivan has molded himself to be, yet looking in the mirror, he plots a different path for his own loving son Michael Jr. (Tyler Hoechlen). Sullivan may not see heaven, as Rooney cautions, but his son could. An intersection of tragic events places Sullivan and son on the road to Perdition (both literally and figuratively) with Sullivan desperately seeking a detour from his preordained fate.

Perdition is director Sam Mendes's follow-up to his critically acclaimed Oscar-winning 2000 release, American Beauty. In both films, Mendes plumbs the heart of darkness that throbs loudly in the core of Americana, seeking to unearth the beauty within. Beauty was fueled by an anti-establishment theme that masked its loftier ambitions until the film?s final moments; for Perdition, Mendes tears a page from classic cinema. While the principal characters are painted in varying degrees of gray, each slightly differentiated by status and ethical variations on the criminal hierarchy, the archetypes of the gentlemanly mob boss, the loyal hit man, and the loyal sons are well represented in the grand pantheon of gangster cinema.

With two films under his belt, Mendes is quickly cementing a reputation as a serious visual auteur and one of my favorite filmmakers. His work in Beauty and here in Perdition is vital, urgent and alive. Working once again with acclaimed cinematographer Conrad L. Hall and composer Thomas Newman (The Shawshank Redemption), Mendes constructs a painter-like hyper-reality. The worlds he makes possess shades of the real world but are rooted deep in the cinematic lexicon, brought to vibrant life through the magic of flicker and shadow. Both films share a fixation on drenching baptismal showers: the principles seek belated attonement for past sins which are washed away in photogenic streams of pouring rain.

It can?t be overstated how important music is to motion pictures. The earliest silent films relied upon music to sell the drama and set the mood. Thomas Newman lends a distinctive voice to each project he works on. His compositions alternate from playful (The Player) to moody (The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption) and often blend these themes creating a deeply textured aural quilt which underscores the onscreen actions sublimely. His work in Perdition ranks high on his resume - as his central theme recurs throughout, softening and dropping in tempo with each reprise; a haunting precursor of this road?s final destination.

On screen, Mendes has cast his film perfectly. Tom Hanks embodies Michael Sullivan perfectly. He is forceful. He is imposing. He is judging. And there is touching whistfulness. In the first half of the film, we view Sullivan with a wary detatchment. Mendes does this intentionally; we are watching his performance in the same way the son views his Dad. Sullivan is a hit man and brutal death is his trade, and Mendes? camera is unflinching. Hanks so thoroughly possesses this role that at no point do we disbelieve he is a dangerous man. This is no gun-toting Gump.

Paul Newman is the absolute no-brainer choice for the role of John Rooney. It?s heartbreaking to see the love Newman holds for Sullivan, and the blood ties that prevent him from fully acknowledging this. In an early scene set at an Irish wake, Newman establishes his character on several fronts - portraying the fatherly sage in a piano duet with Hanks while dropping hints of steely-eyed menace bobbing just below the surface when a rogue ?business partner? allows booze-soaked lips to loosen and lob accuasations Rooney?s way. Its unwise to cross John Rooney.

Tyler Hoechlin delivers a great, earthbound performance as Michael Jr. This performance is one of the film?s most pivotal as the events portrayed unfold through this young man?s eyes. Hoechlin anchors the film. While there is nary room for precociousness, Hoechlin injects some much needed levity in the film?s mid-section when father and son hit the road. It?s during these sequences, when Hank?s Sullivan follows a path of self-discovery and realizes why he treated his son with such greater detachment than he did his other younger son, that Hoechlin truly shines. The audience clearly understands why this father needs this son and vice-versa.

Road to Perdition, while a gangster film in the traditional sense and equal parts revenge thriller and morality play, is essentially a treatise on the delicate bond between fathers and sons. Often men cut from the same cloth, with so much more in common than just blood, find little to discuss. It is almost as if they?re afraid of what they?ll spy in the mirror, and when presented with progeny that shadow themselves, they reflect upon their mistakes and fear that road less traveled will be visited once again.

A few years ago much was made of a bit of sci-fi, touchy-feely hokum called Frequency. Advance word was that the film was jury-rigged to make grown men cry. That film was said to be an exploration of the bonds between fathers and sons. I found it nothing more than a cheesy time-traveling serial killer riff which slapped its sentimental heart upon its sleeve; guys could drag their chicks to the flick and prove that beneath their macho exterior lay a blubbering baby.

Perdition is the real deal. It will make some grown men cry, but it earns the tears. Make no mistake, this is pure visceral cinema through and through; a film which rewards the eyes as well as the mind; but for those men who have grown up with fathers they?ve always felt a tad detatched from (take it from one who knows) this film nails that relationship dynamic and offers some compelling reasons for why the gulf may exist.

There is a reason why Tom Hanks was the first thespian to win back to back Oscars for Best Actor. He remains one of our finest actors, and rewards his fans with continued challenging roles. Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, The Green Mile and Cast Away - a damn fine body of work capped by Road to Perdition - by far his riskiest and most rewarding endeavor yet. Road to Perdition provides a journey well worth taking.

7.26.02