Rating: 
Summary: Having A Go With Us
Review: "Road to Perdition" isn't a terrible film and not as boring as some ADD kids might have you believe. There really are some beautiful scenes and great acting, but some truly confusing/laughable scenes. Father and son bonding scenes always confuse me. Why is it they always bond by learning how to drive stick? After "Over The Top", viewers stopped caring. Shortly after this scene there is a strange montage sequence to a wacky ragtime ditty. These uncanny moments would be overlooked, but it's directly after some truly awful events. Suppose they couldn't get Robin Williams for the deep-dish pizza scene. Ho hum, we've seen worse.
Rating: 
Summary: At last, DreamWorks' best film!
Review: At last DreamWorks does one right. Not here will you see the story exist only as an excuse for their very talented special effects people. Here the special effects serve the story. Hopefully the other studios will follow DreamWorks' lead on this. (Unlikely though. We'll get more special effects blockbusters which are as interesting as watching someone play a video game.) DreamWorks is to be commended. ROAD TO PERDITION is a very restrained movie. Mature (meaning not childish), stern, masculine, medieval -- even though it's set in 1930s America. The special effects seem restrained. The directing is restrained. The colors are restrained. The dialog is restrained. The acting is restrained. The early scene with the dripping ice surrounding the casket could be seen as a metaphor for the whole movie. In many ways it's a classic sort of horror film, with the tension and horror building in the mind and not necessarily visually. There's some coarse language. And much violence, though the violence is not as explicit as most movies today. The audience sees the shooter, but not so much the victim. It's a fine fine film and a contemplative one, but I will admit it may not be to everyone's taste.
Rating: 
Summary: Awesome!
Review: I bought the full screen edition but still I really like this film and was surprised despite what the hardcore reviewers out there say. It has action and has story but first as a good film always starts is the relationships and the connections amongst the people of the community and what is occuring at the very moment due to actions and threatening revolution from the past. If you can't waith for Once Upon A Time In America to come out yet or already have the untouchables than you should look at this film cause it is a good one.
Rating: 
Summary: ZZZZZZZZZZZ
Review: This is one of those movies I wish I had rented. NOT a keeper. Some of the 20's period cinematography was pretty but not worth a movie on the small screen. Wish I had caught it in the theater, been mildly disappointed and not bought the DVD. Kinda boring movie.
Rating:
Summary: A live action action movie from Dreamworks
Review: Dreamworks is movie company that have been in business for 9 years now, that not only does animnated movies but alos live action movies too. Dreamworks was founded by ex- Disney staff animator/staff member Jeffrey Katzenburg and Steven Speligburg. The movie takes place in the year 1931, and I guess the state that most of the movie (or all the movie) takes place in Illinois. As the movie opens, Michael Sullivan Jr (Tyler Hoeclin) does not know what what his dad Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks) does for a living. But what he does know that his dad works for Johny Rooney (Paul Newman). But when his mom (Jennifer Jason Lee) and younger brother (Liamm Aiken) both dead. He and his dad take off for a journey that takes 6 weeks. The movie was filmed in Chicago, and and across the country. There is not most light being shown in this movie, of course they is some light and light enoeugh to see the action that goes on this movie. Dreamwork's arch rival Disney also does make live actions movies, but they are for family movies, what may be could to see Disney make a live action movie that is not made for kids and families, and have a live action movie to get a PG-13 or R rating. This movie got rated R for violence and language.
Rating:
Summary: This is how film should be made...
Review: During the hard times of the Great Depression two children of Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks) go on like nothing can touch them while they enjoy decent meals, happy moments, and live in a large house. However, all the luxuries have a price that the oldest of the two sons discovers during one night when he shadows his father as he is carrying out the work assigned to him by his boss John Rooney (Paul Newman). This event becomes traumatizing for Michael Sullivan, Jr. and it leads to more bloodshed. The violence draws the son closer to his father and as they get closer, the father becomes aware of his own path in life, but can he save his sons' path to eternal damnation (i.e., perdition)? Road to Perdition uses cunning cinematography that enhances the moments of crucial significance in the story. Combined with the outstanding cast, the director expands the texture of the film with a genuine touch of the 1930s and human ambiguity. The film offers a dark heartfelt cinematic experience that offers both contemplative work and fascinating entertainment, which fan the sense of suspense and action.
Rating:
Summary: Just go buy it.
Review: You know you want to. What can I say about it? Tom Hanks is awesome as usual. Actually, not as usual. He play completely out of character in this movie and it's great. Paul Newman is grean and how many more great movies will this fine gentleman be in? It's an awesome father/son story that is different in most every way possible. You see the end coming a mile off but it doesn't make the movie less superb. Buy the movie. Buy the movie. Buy the movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Excruciatingly boring
Review: Even with a cast of heavyweights including Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Jude Law, this film never gets off the ground. For the first hour and five minutes, you're waiting for something remotely interesting to happen. Not until Jude Law's character appears is there some intrigue and reason to watch. It's short-lived and after another 20 minutes, the film returns to its stale pace. There are no likable characters in this movie. These thugs just go around killing each other for sport. It's never really clear who works for who. Doesn't matter - just knock off another one whenever you feel like it. The usually brilliant Hanks brings out nothing in this character. Here's a guy who earns a living as a mobster hit man, but yet tries to have a family life with a wife and two sons. The viewer never gets the impression that he cares for these people, so it should come as no surprise that he shows little emotion when another mobster whacks his wife and one of his sons. Paul Newman is merely window dressing and a name to sell the movie. Sadly, there's no character for this talented actor to sink his teeth in to. The film is an embarrassment for both Newman's and Hanks' resumes. The only actor who breathes life into his character is Jude Law as the twisted photograher-killer. His scenes are the only ones worth watching. The best scene in the film is the diner conversation between him and Hanks. I was ready to turn this stinker off after 15 minutes, but I stayed with it, hoping it would improve. It never did. If you really must see it, wait until it shows up on television - certainly don't spend money on it.
Rating:
Summary: Deeper shades underneath the Saturday afternoon pulp
Review: "Road To Perdition" is a fine Saturday matinee for adults; it's appealing as a gangster potboiler, and, if choose to seek a little longer, it's appealing intellectually. I think of the Coen Brothers' "Miller's Crossing," a stylish movie only enjoyable on the first level and not the second, whereas this vehicle has deeper and darker shades upon which to ruminate. Tom Hanks is a hitman and Paul Newman is his local mob boss in 1920s Illinois, a state run by the Capone crime family in Chicago. Hanks has two sons and a wife, and Newman has his son and is a widow. Newman's son, Connor (Daniel Craig) was born with a brutal streak mixed with a grown boy's petulance. You put a gun in the hands of a man like that, and innocent heads will roll. They do, sure enough, and all would be well if one of Hanks' son weren't there to see it. Connor wants the kid dead, Hanks dead, the whole family dead. He settles for two of the four. Hanks and son are forced on the road to survive, bond and plot a means of vengeance. Newman hires a traveling hitman, played by Jude Law, to track down Hanks and son.
Now, onto the deeper, darker shades:
1. The movie works, I think, if you understand Hanks' character is essentially naïve; that is, he fails to understand the ingrained violence in his business -- yes, even though he is a hitman -- and what it might mean for even a man who does his job well. It's hardly fair that, when Hanks asks for Capone's help, assistant Frank Nitti (Stanley Tucci) has to turn him down despite not wanting to. That's the illogic of the mafia; it consistently does things adverse to its well-being to stay in lockstep with its quirky "code." In this significant way it differs, say, a government. Hanks does not play a smart man. He is a simpleton, actually; once he understands the low odds, his recourse is just to kill them all. It's his only recourse, but a smarter man might have tried other things. It's important to note that pleading to Capone is not another thing, but a false illusion Hanks' character initially has. 2. You have to accept the Greek tragedy structure. Law's character, essentially, is death, and he waits at the end of the movie as if he was always going to be there. He haunts the film. His own death is appropriate, because death will manifest itself in someone different. Law's character was merely a vessel. This idea is considered nicely in our introduction to the character; Law walks toward us and stays oddly in proportion with his surroundings; an optical trick by Conrad Hall, it's as if Law is entering from the netherworld. The tragedy structure also explains the things that are inexplicable. Why Newman would protect his worthless son, for example. Normally, mafia sons are expendable, especially in movies; consider "The Godfather, Part II."
3. This is the best looking film of the year. Couldn't you just spend a week haunting all the sets in this film? I'd like to credit director Sam Mendes, and I will, but only because he allowed the cinematographer, the departed Conrad L. Hall, the freedom to be a virtuoso. Hall simply understands the camera; the overhead angle that opens the Tommy gun scene is obviously his idea, as is Law entrance. When awards time rolled around, "Road To Perdition" was overlooked, maybe because the story was a bit much. But its place on the list of many movie fans will linger, because there's much to ponder. In retrospect, this should have been a winter release, where it could reaped, oh, eight to ten nominations. What we have will have to do, but this was an outstanding film.
Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly Unsatisfying Despite All the Positive Reviews
Review: Great cast with a collection of stars that make you expect a lot more than this movie offers. I have no complaint about the individual performances but the movie has an artificial feel that never permits that suspension of disbelief that is essential for an enjoyable movie experience. You are never permitted to forget that you are watching actors emoting on a soundstage. Director Mendes has taken the maxim that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery to an over-the-top extreme. There scenes after scenes that were shamelessy lifted from the Coen brothers "Barton Fink" and "Miller's Crossing." The last straw for me, the point where I decided that I didn't like this movie, was the scene at the end where Tom Hanks machine-guns Paul Newman and his henchmen in the rain with the sound of gunfire completely omitted and replaced by the soft tinkling of a piano. In Albert Finney's scene in "Miller's Crossing," mob boss Finney kills the assassins accompanied by the roar of his Thompson and the sounds of "Danny Boy" appropriately coming to a crescendo in the background. In this movie it took a few seconds for me to figure out what was happening as Hanks walks into the scene with his machine gun spitting fire. Once I did realize what was going on, my only thought was how inappropriate and unsatisfying this was compared to movie being imitated.
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