3 gibbles out of 5

Director: Sam Mendes

I’m still not sold on Sam Mendes.  “Road to Perdition” is slow, and doesn’t really give the viewer any reason for watching, initially, only asking that you hold on long enough to get interested in the characters and the story.  (This has, to me, been a linking element in Mendes’ films…)  Admittedly, I wouldn’t have been drawn from the film except for it being an adaptation of a Max Allan Collins graphic novel, and having just been massively impressed by a Collins Hard Case Crime book I read, I was eager to see what a film realization would feel like.

It feels pretty dreary.

Much of “Perdition” is shadowed, or rainy.  Its daytime scenes rarely crack a smile and when they do, it honestly seems out of place.  Hanks is interestingly cast against type, and the grizzled look he brings to mob enforcer Michael Sullivan makes you wish we could see him more often in this driven but weary persona.  He brings a lot of weight to the story – where Sullivan is on the run with his son from his former employer after an in-family rivalry with the boss’s son – played by Daniel Craig – leads to deaths and threats and the whole nine.  But instead of playing it as a straight tough, there’s an omnipresent spectre of guilt that lays atop every one and every thing, and here Hank’s subtleties as a fine actor can be put into play.

And then what else is there to say?  “Perdition” is a sad story, but nothing about it seems to suggest that it will be otherwise.  Hanks is haunted, Craig is slimy, the family “father”, played by Paul Newman, emanates care when things are good, but is willing to turn and pull the trigger when it’s a business call.  When Jude Law is called in to track down Hanks, he’s slathered up in ratty makeup and plays the role to a loathsome T.  So when we get to our conclusion, even when all seems fine, you can’t help but expect that tragedy is around the corner.

Now I like sad stories, but “Road” didn’t connect with me.  There’s something so austere about the whole thing that you can’t quite rally behind any aspect of the story, you’re just along for a ride.  Mendes’ camera and positioning of characters always seems to view everything as an observer.  If you look away, these mobsters lonely lives will continue all the same.  “Perdition” is a well-made film that sticks so adherently to a code of silence that it’s hard to feel affected by its outcome.