|
There's
something about this summer that makes it seem a lot more like
late autumn. Sure,
we've had plenty of brainless popcorn flicks, but there have
also been a surprising number of intelligent films (The
Bourne Identity, Minority
Report) released over the last month that seem better
suited for a late-year Oscar campaign than marquee space with
movies like Reign of Fire and Scooby
Doo. Another
example of this phenomenon – and perhaps the best – is Road
To Perdition, Sam Mendes' spectacular follow-up to the
Oscar-winning American Beauty.
It's 2002's best film thus far, and I'm skeptical that
we'll see anything superior to it for the rest of the year.
“Perdition”
refers to two things: It's a small town in Kansas to which our
two protagonists are headed, as well as a fancy word meaning
eternal damnation. Michael
Sullivan (Tom Hanks, Cast Away)
and his 12-year-old son Michael, Jr. (newcomer Tyler Hoechlin)
are on that titular road, but it remains unclear which
definition of Perdition awaits them at the end of their journey.
The
film takes place over six weeks in the winter of 1931.
Sullivan is a hard-working family man, bringing home the
bacon for Junior, wife Annie (Jennifer Jason Leigh, The
Anniversary Party) and youngest boy Peter (Liam Aiken, Sweet
November). They're
a close, loving family with a big house, a huge yard and few
problems, other than never being able to ask Dad about his day
at work. See,
Sullivan is a fearless and unflinching killing machine for the
Rock Island, Illinois arm of the Chicago mob, which is
controlled by the very same John Rooney (Paul Newman, Where
the Money Is) who took a fatherless Sullivan under his
wing when he was a boy.
Curious
about his father's line of work, Junior hides in the backseat of
the car and accompanies the unwitting Sullivan and Rooney's son
Connor (Daniel Craig, Lara Croft:
Tomb Raider) to a late-night warehouse meeting that goes
horribly wrong. Unseen
and observing from a crack in the wall, like Kyle MacLachlan in Blue
Velvet, Junior watches his father slaughter a half-dozen men
and then scrambles away in horror.
But he's eventually noticed by Connor, who nearly offs
him before Sullivan realizes who he is.
This
one innocent incident is the catalyst for Perdition's
story. A gunman is
dispatched to kill Annie and the boys, while Sullivan is sent on
a mission from which nobody expects him to return.
But he does, and Junior isn't home when the killer comes
a-calling, so the two hit the road, unable to take time to
grieve the loss of their kin.
I expected the wheels to fall off the story here,
dreading a touchy-feely story about a father bonding with his
son during unusual circumstances, but Perdition is much
more than that. It
focuses more on the revenge than the bonding, which makes the
film very dark, very violent and somewhat heartbreaking.
Perdition
is the third slick adaptation of a graphic novel in less than a
year (following Ghost World and From
Hell), and it's able to tell much more of a story than
the vast majority of films adapted from more traditional sources
(like that Ya-Ya
bullshit, which was based on two full-length books).
We get the one unusual father-son relationship between
Sullivan and Junior, but two others are thrown in for absolutely
no additional charge. The
chemistry between Sullivan and Rooney positively crackles, while
Rooney's strained rapport with Connor is a major force in
Perdition's success (imagine a thinner, shrewder Vito Corleone
with just one son, who is an unfortunate hybrid of bumbling
Fredo and hotheaded Sonny).
Newman
(who got help with his Irish accent from Frank McCourt), Craig
and newcomer Hoechlin all do extremely well in their roles, as
does Hanks, though his part is very subtle (his Sullivan is
supposed to be a guy who nobody notices).
Both Jude Law (A.I.), who
briefly appears as a jaundiced, balding freelance press
photographer/hitman with baked-bean teeth, and Stanley Tucci (Big
Trouble), who plays Al Capone's right-hand man in
Chicago, perform strongly in very small roles (Capone is never
seen, though he and a big Eliot Ness subplot appear in the
graphic novel, which was adapted for the screen by Thirteen
Days' David Self).
Mendes
proves that the overwhelming success of his feature-film debut
was no fluke with Perdition, which, like Beauty,
was photographed by the great Conrad L. Hall (an
Oscar winner for Beauty)
.
There's a scene early in the film depicting a big Irish
funeral, and Hall shoots it so well, you can practically smell
the cigar smoke and whiskey.
But he's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Perdition's
behind-the-camera talent. Thomas
Newman's (another Oscar winner for Beauty)
score is nearly perfect, hampered only by its similarity to his
theme for Six Feet Under.
Moulin Rouge's
Oscar-nominated editor Jill Bilcock shows she isn't really a
crack-addicted ferret, while the team of production, set, art
and costume designers (Dennis Gassner, Nancy Haigh, Richard L.
Johnson and Albert Wolsky) have all logged time on the Coen
brothers' many period films or took home Oscars for their work
in Bugsy. Soup
to nuts, Perdition is as beautiful a film as you'll see
this year.
| 1:59
- |
 |
for
violence and language |
|
