Road to Perdition (2002)

"Road to Perdition" is as far from a comic book movie as one could get, but it's nonetheless based on a graphic novel by Max Allan Collins and Richard Piers Rayner. With a brilliant cast that includes Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jude Law, Stanley Tucci and a star-making turn by Daniel Craig, it's a great film that could one day gain classic gangster film status.

Hanks plays Mike Sullivan, the enforcer of John Rooney (Newman), a small-city gangster who seems to rule his berg like a wise, old and content Al Capone. But the mad, immoral Connor Rooney (Craig) is grabbing for pop's power, and in the process Sullivan's family, save for his oldest child (Tyler Hoechlin), are murdered. Then the chase is on: Mike and son flee to Chicago for help from Frank Nitti (Tucci). Following is a psychopathic assassin/photographer (Law).

The film just isn't about the mafia, guns and murder, although there's plenty to go around. It's about fathers and sons, and the constant loss communications. The Michaels must bond, and learn to trust one another. And John Rooney, who sees Mike as the son he wished he had, rages and then protects the one he was dealt. This was one of the Newman films I watched after his passing, and it's a great final big screen bow. Newman is brilliant, full of fire and evil as a man who knows he's going to hell for his sins, but must bury himself further in a sulfur pit to keep Connor alive. Newman doesn't have many lines, he lets his body language -- sometimes stiff, sometimes slack, sometimes withered, other times in full violent rage -- do the work. He plays the man as powerful, but broken to the core.

Craig, one of a few actors who can almost match Newman on charisma, is a stunner as the evil adult child. Sam Mendes, coming off "American Beauty," has made a great film. Props to Thomas Newman's top-notch score and the rural, open setting of most of the film. A