Review

Review Date: 21-July-02
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Just OK

Road to Perdition (2002)

The tagline to director Sam Mendes' first film, "American Beauty," was "look closer." Which is rather ironic, because that film was a cinematically adroit but interiorly shallow bunch of hokum which somehow dazzled its way to an Oscar. And now the Dreamworks marketing machine is already pitching Mendes' follow-up, "Road to Perdition," as another Oscar contender. But really, one doesn't need to look THAT closely at "Road to Perdition" to discover the decay behind the facade. It's yet another picture about a hit man with whom we're supposed to sympathize, and about the legacy of love and pain that is passed on from father to son. There's nothing new here, and as far as I'm concerned, nothing much of intrinsic merit, either.

"Road to Perdition" is beautiful, though. Very, very beautiful. Mendes and his cinematographer, Conrad L. Hall, drench every meticulous scene in a gorgeous, suffused light, rich with ambiance: rain dripping off fedoras, the throng at a ceili dance, the interiors of lavish buildings, even brutal killings are lovely to behold. So, too, is the face of Tyler Hoechlin, the actor who plays the young hero of the film; the camera drinks deeply of his exceptional beauty to wonderful effect. Pretty artistic tableaux are peppered throughout the film, like the shot of the boy's bike lying in the snow at the very moment that his childhood ends. Then there's the music: thrilling, powerful, and masterfully designed to evoke the strongest emotions. This is nice filmmaking. Too bad Mendes has again chosen a story unworthy of it.

The movie takes place in 1931. Tom Hanks is Michael Sullivan, an Irish hit man in the service of his surrogate father, John Rooney (Paul Newman), whose real son, Connor, is allowed a part in the family business but is a bit of a screw-up. Sullivan has made a good living in death, enough to provide a decent, suburban home for a wife and two boys. But violence begets violence, and Sullivan's life is upended when his eldest child (Hoechlin) follows him and Connor to "work" one night, and Connor decides that the kid must die because he might talk about what he has witnessed. Being a screw-up, though, Connor kills Mrs. Sullivan and the younger Sullivan boy, leaving the Michael Sullivans, senior and fils, to embark on a road trip of danger, robbery, and mutual bonding on the way to the father's calculated revenge. Needless to say, he gets it, but it ain't sweet.

Why can't I accept this familiar story of revenge, so prettily presented and so faithfully adherent to the standard notions of underworld and family obligations, when last week I was willing to accept the unoriginal and sometimes unexplained adventure clichés of "Reign of Fire?" Because of what these stock narratives say about ourselves and our culture. Adventure heroes fight for the lives of others, for the downfall of evil, or for the liberation of the oppressed. Hit men, mafiosi, drug dealers, thugs --- those darlings of modern cinema --- fight because they like it, because it gives them power, because they don't know any other way of reacting to the world, or because it makes them (or the people they work for) rich. Now ask me which type of character I want to watch.

I have long been puzzled by America's fascination with mobsters and such. In most movies, the mobsters are not clever or funny or involved in some amazing romance or particularly unusual situation. They're just violent schmucks, whom, apparently, we're supposed to find interesting because they swear a lot, kill and beat people, and have hookers for girlfriends. I don't care about such people. At best, they're boring; at worst, they're despicable. It's not entertaining. Same goes for Michael Sullivan. He is a narrow-minded man who, like a dog, is driven either by a blind loyalty to his master or a blind adherence to the rules of his vicious pack. So he has a wife and kids that he cares about. Does that grant him unusual depth and demand my empathetic interest? No; for this very reason, I place him in the despicable category. As far as I'm concerned, no one whose job is killing people should have kids; it's the height of selfishness. What right does such a person have to hold onto that beautiful child, his son, when he has called down a torrent of bullets upon their heads and brought them to the brink of violent extinction? What sympathy should he get from me as he pursues his hopeless quest of revenge, when he and everyone he knows has made his living in coercion, crime, and blood? Why should I shed a tear at his demise, so justly earned, and delight that he is granted his one benevolent wish --- that his son will not become as he is --- before he heads off to hell? I celebrate that bit of triumph for his son alone, not for him.

I'll give the film one bit of credit: it's almost as if the writers and producers knew that Michael Sullivan was a dullard who deserved little sympathy or forgiveness. This may explain the casting of the beloved Hanks as Sullivan and the addition to the story of a depression-era incarnation of Satan, memorably but sporadically embodied by Jude Law. (I say "addition" because his character was not in the original novel on which the screenplay is based.) Law's character specializes in corpses: both photographing them and creating them. He is completely without morals, compassion, or feeling (not to mention dental hygiene) and, though nominally present as Sullivan's nemesis, his real purpose seems to be to provide a grossly fascinating counterpoint for viewers. Compared to this guy, Sullivan is a saint.

This movie made me think hard about why Americans love mobsters, and Sullivan's downfall and the ridiculous final scene pointed me toward a hideous (and probably obvious) answer: power and money. Now that I think about it, thug movies are often pretty to look at; the idolized and idealized sons of bitches are always nicely dressed, live in gorgeous houses, cavort with gorgeous dames, drive fancy cars, and hang out in brilliantly lit casinos or on decks overlooking azure beaches. They're rich, like every red-blooded American wants to be. (Even the nice, old, childless country folk who take Michael Sullivan, Jr., in at the end apparently don't have the slightest problem accepting a fortune in questionable money from a strange man who shows up at their house with a gunshot wound.) And these heroes of the underworld are not only rich, they're tragically doomed, fated to go out in blazes of gory glory that smack of divine retribution for their daring to live like gods. They never grow old. They're not puny like the rest of us, wasting away our lives in boring cubicle jobs with no creed of honor and very little hope of hitting the big time. They've got what we want because they were brave enough to take it. This earns them a glorious death --- and a permanent place in American film.

The first gangster movie might have been an interesting, bracing look at a dark, secret way of life that offers great wealth and power at the expense of one's humanity, and inevitably leads to destruction. But now the bloom is off the rose. Come on, folks, they're only natty hoodlums. Let's leave off admiring, envying, and pitying them.

The tagline for "Road to Perdition" is "pray for Michael Sullivan." I don't. I pray for those who think that the beauty in his story is more than skin deep.

Copyright © 2002 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.