Road To Perdition

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">Cast: </span>Tom Hanks, Paul Newman<br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">Direction: </span>Sam Mendes<br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">Rating: </span>****<br /><br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">Synopsis: </span>Here''s Sam Mendes''s agilely-crafted follow-up to his Oscar-winning directorial debut American Beauty.An engrossing crime drama, it overflows with sharp dialogue and operatic violence. Moreover, an exceptional ensemble cast does full justice to this stylised tale of love and death. While opting for a change of scene, the film-maker continues to examine parental relationships with incisive insight. <br />Adapted from a novel by Max Allan Collins (1998), Road To Perdition is set in the gangster dominated city of Chicago during the Al Capone era. Pulpy, yet thematically rich, the narrative focusses on a mob hitman (Hanks) whose sedate family life is shattered. His wife (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and younger child are killed by a rival. Like an angel of death, the devastated hitman sets out with his surviving son (Tyler Hoechlin) to wreak vendetta. Inexorably, the 12-year-old son is exposed to the dark truth about his dad''s real profession. <br />On his part, the bereaved gangster comes into conflict with his own adoptive father, an Irish crime lord (Newman) who has reared him. In a twist to the plot, the foster father is forced to choose between his surrogate son and his own feckless biological offspring (Daniel Craig). How such emotional complications are resolved forms the narrative core of the crime saga.<br /><br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">Review: </span>Throughout, the director attempts to probe and understand mobsters without ever glorifying them. Among the interesting horde of characters, there are nasty dudes who controlled the mean streets of Chicago in the 1930s, including an eccentric assassin (an impressive Jude Law) who photographs his dead victims. Dennis Gassner''s meticulously detailed production design, the skilled, evocative cinematography by Conrad L. Hall and Thomas Newman''s background music score are major assets. Tom Hanks, who bravely goes against his goody-goody image, is excellent as the vengeful hitman. Expectedly, the show is all but stolen by the charismatic Paul Newman. The actor who has aged so gracefully continues to keep the viewer mesmerised. Vengeance may be a hackneyed trip but Mendes makes it a sureshot ticket to ride. </div> </div>