Review of Road to Perdition (2002) by Tingting G — 14 May 2011

This is definitely Hanks best role to date. I'd love to see him do more subtle acting because he is SO DARN GOOD AT IT. What I love so much about this film is that it explores the relationships between father and sons.

Every other mob story focuses most on the nature of a mob-life and tries to subdue the emotional focus, because the mafia are supposed to put business before feelings. While this may be true, I think the reality for a lot of hit-men were that the mob was their life, it was what they knew, as was the case for Sullivan.

Sullivan is a man who, if situations were different, could have turned out as any typical, honorable man (even as a hit-man he carried himself with honor). I think this story has us question the people underneath the career and the reasons they have for being where they stand.

More than anything it shows us the universal truth that every son needs a father. The way this film explores those family ties and those introspective elements of the human mind is amazing, and is a unique achievement of its own.

People would do the film much wrong to compare it to the Godfather, because it has a completely different purpose. I feel like a lot of the critics hold a stereotype that mafia films cannot have justice in them.

They must all end like the Godfather or whatever else, but I think that is the stupidest mindset to have in approaching this film. What's wrong with a little justice? Are hit-men not human, and do not all humans have to some degree a sense of humanity? It is the shared humanity in all of us that the film explores by connecting the average movie-goer with a hitman from the capone era.

Frankly, the idea that a lack of justice is the necessary element to a good mob story is completely misguided.