Tom Hanks is a special kind of person. He is easily and immediately identifiable as Tom Hanks and nobody else. When you see Tom Hanks, no matter where he is or what he is doing, you know it is Tom Hanks. You cannot confuse him for anybody else. He's tall, he's squinty, he's got that Tom Hanks smirk that only Tom Hanks has, he's got that Tom Hanks voice that only Tom Hanks has. I've never smelled Tom Hanks, but I'm willing to bet he smells exactly like I would expect Tom Hanks to smell like.
There are a lot of actors like this. BOOM! That's Tom Cruise. BOOM! That's Bruce Willis. BOOM! That's Keven Costner. And BOOM! That's Tom Hanks.
But what sets Tom Hanks apart is his ability to convince his audience soon after a movie starts that they are no longer looking at Tom Hanks but at a particular character (even though clearly, CLEARLY, it is still Tom Hanks wearing a disguise).
Consider all those Tom Hanks movies you've seen. At the beginning, you're all, "Hey, that's Tom Hanks!" But by the end you're convinced you just saw a story about a Fed-Ex guy stuck on an island, or a gregarious historian with bad hair, or a kid who got turned into an adult by a mechanical fortune teller, or a gay Philadelphian dying of AIDS, or a ping-pong-playing chocolate-eating Southern dimwit. He convinces you of this despite the fact that he is and forever will be Tom Hanks, the most Tom Hanks Toms Hanks has ever Tom Hanksed.
As this Michael Sullivan guy, even though the character is blandishly written (an open canvas for anybody to inadvertently spill themselves all over), the Tom Hanks ebbs away and a conflicted mustachioed hitman appears. His performance is subtle and nuanced, even as he's shooting guns. A glance here, a well-timed pause there. He gives substance to a substanceless character.
On paper Michael Sullivan is drab, along with all the other characters, along with the story itself. There is just not much to it. It is just some stuff that happens. It is just some decisions people make without much thought. For a gangster movie this translates fairly unremarkably to film.
There are two exceptions here, plus some cinematographic excellence that keeps things interesting.
Exception 1) Tom Hanks, of course. He turns Michael Sullivan into something we care about (more so than the kid). It's not much, but it works.
Exception 2) Harlen Maguire, the hitman's hitman, portayed by Jude Law. On paper Maguire is supposed to be creepy and twisted and brilliant and terrifying. I'm inclined to believe that he was supposed to steal the show. But Jude Law turns him into something campy and silly and dumb and not-so-scary. I don't know if this is Jude Law's fault, but we get a caricature instead of a character.
So this film wouldn't be worth watching EXCEPT for this: it is shot perfectly. Seriously. You could watch Road to Perdition fifty times and every time you can pick out something you never noticed before.
The camera is somehow both subjective and objective, painting a picture of the things you need to see without blatantly telling you what it is you need to see. You pick up the details on your own time, maybe realizing what's happening before the characters do, maybe realizing as the characters do.
The cinematography is beautiful. The country goes on forever, as if heaven lay just beyond the fill-up station. Even the city looks good. Everything appears authentically Depression-era-esque without looking dumpy for dumpiness's sake.
And finally, hallway motifs!
Oh yes, there is one more good reason to watch Road to Perdition. Tom Hanks does that crazy yell he does when he's angry. You know the one. "DIDN'T YOU EVER SEE FATAL ATTRACTION?" Tom Hanks yelling is one of my favorite things in the world.
Road to Perdition, all told, is not a bad movie. It is by no means a great movie, but it's not bad. If you want to see a great movie in this same vein, watch Miller's Crossing. It's got John Turturro and Steve Buscemi and Sam Raimi is in there somewhere. No Tom Hanks, though.
I rate Road to Perdition 2.5 Tom Hankses... out of 5.
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