Road to Perdition

Starring: Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jude Law, Stanley Tucci

Directed by: Sam Mendes

RS: 4of 4 Stars Average User Rating: 4of 4 Stars

2002 Drama

If you passed by this Road because you don't like Depression-era gangster films or couldn't buy the idea of Tom Hanks as a hitman, this DVD will elegantly rub your nose in what you missed. Hanks is superb, and Paul Newman is even better as his surrogate father, a hood with a heart unless a man, woman or child gets in his way.

Based on a graphic novel, Road is directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty), who notes that the story is "in the images, not in the dialogue." And what images. Shot by the great Conrad L. Hall, who died in January at seventy-six, the film has a burnished beauty that makes you hit the pause button just to gape. Still, many of the extras are promotional blah-blah. And the eleven deleted scenes don't add up to much, except for one with a lively Anthony LaPaglia as Al Capone. The stuff that sticks is with Hall, a cinematographer who left at the top of his game.

PETER TRAVERS
(March 6, 2003)