Unlike most revered and recent gangster films, director Sam Mendes brings to Road to Perdition the sense of family, both secure and damaged, as he did to American Beauty.
Tom Hanks (pictured) plays Michael Sullivan, a typical 1930s husband with wife Annie (Jennifer Jason-Leigh) and two sons, including Mike Sullivan Jnr (Tyler Hoechin). Sullivan Snr becomes a hitman for gang boss John Rooney (Paul Newman) and discovers that Rooney's son Connor (Daniel Craig) is skimming from the takings. When he confronts the boss with this information, he unknowingly sets in train a series of events that sees him and Jnr the only survivors of a hit on his family. The pair hit the road with cash stolen from Sullivan's now vengeful employer. And on their trail is macabre, pock-faced photographer Maguire (Jude Law), who combines killing with selling exclusive front-page snaps of the scene...
Hanks puts in a solid performance, shedding his normally light persona for one of darkness, while Paul Newman turns in one of the best performances of his later years. Mendes's direction is aided by cinematographer Conrad L Hall, who eschews bright, sunny scenes, using instead darkness, rain, shadow and half-caught faces under hat brims to supplement the feeling of a dark dread pulling not just Sullivan but all the characters down a grim yet gripping road to perdition.
Road to Perdition is a Film programme that first aired in 2002 and has been classified a 15 certificate.
