[Mark Pfeiffer]

Road to Perdition is a solid, well made piece of entertainment, and it's definitely a cut above what usually comes out during the summer. I liked it but wasn't exactly bowled over like some of the early "best of the year" talk. I'm not quite sure how audiences will react.

[Mark McLeod]

Does anyone have a running time. I have passes to a screening on Wed but I've heard there's a screening tonight that I can talk my way into however I'd like to know how long it runs before I decide to go out and catch it.

A quick answer would be appreciated

Mark

[Travis_S]

I heard it's just a tad under 2 hours long.

[Thi Them]

Janet Maslin did think that it would be considered for Oscars.

By the way, the critics seemed to all agree that, so far this summer, Minority Report is the best Hollywood movie and The Fast Runner is the best indepedent movie. I agree with them about Minority Report; however, I felt The Fast Runner was merely good, though it has what I consider to be the best sequence ever involving a naked man running through a frozen terrain.

~T

[Mark McLeod]

So I got into the screening last night which wasn't as easy as I originally thought due to my information about it being a private screening being incorrect. It was a public screening and by the time I arrived (roughly an hour before showtime) there was already a massive lineup of people who had passes. I spent 40 minutes (untill they let the lineup in) schmoozing various people including Paramount and Dreamworks reps but alas their extra tickets were already taken.

As luck would have it I found a group of three people who had 2 double passes and they agreed to let me go in with them.

Now for the movie itself. It's a very good motion picture that's just missing that little extra something that would bump it from good to great. The acting is strong, the cinematography is excellent though the print/presentation was poor. The story and character development could use a little work. I'm not sure if I like this current trend of using graphic novels as source material.

It's not quite the caliber of American Beauty but going in I wasn't expecting it to be. That is one hard film to follow up.

The movie also doesn't feel like a summer film and I'm worried that it will get lost admist the MIB2s, Mr Deeds and other mindless summer fare. Minority Report seems to be doing well since it's such a strong film but this one might stumble. Either way it's a good film and I eagerly await tomorrow night when I can see it again. Hopefully the presentation at the other theater will be better though based on past experiences I'm not counting on it.

[Robert Crawford]

This thread is now designated the Official Discussion Thread for "Road to Perdition". Please, post all comments, links to outside reviews, film and box office discussion items to this thread.

All HTF member film reviews of "Road to Perdition" should be posted to this thread.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter.


Crawdaddy

[Brent Bridgeman]

I haven't heard much about this one. Is Tom Hanks in the Bing Crosby role? Isn't Bob Hope a little old be be doing pictures? He's made up to look a lot like Paul Newman in the previews I've seen. And, is Perdition anywhere near Morrocco?

I'm sorry. Couldn't resist.

[Lou Sytsma]

Most reviews I have read make reference to other gangster movies. One review said it was more akin to Shawshank Redemption in the themes it presented.

Anyone concur with that reference?

[Adam_S]

it's funny that others bring up shawshank as they seem to me to be two diametrically different films. However I also brought up Shawshank in my review (rave) of the film, as I said there the reason it gets brought up by me is because this film is immediately vaulted to that league and caliber of film, storytelling at it's finest and filmmaking at it's pinnacle. Road to Perdition isn't quite as good as Shawshank, but it's the rare film that meets that league of film. I enjoyed it much more than American Beauty, which I felt was too affected and full of itself, though technically an outstanding work it never connected with me as either a comedy, drama, or satire and I tried it on all those levels.

It seems that many reviews that are somewhat negative are negative because it is too 'predictable' I think that is something of a feature of this story. It's supposed to be inevitable and predictable, from the moment the picture opens his son is standing staring at an ocean? lake? we dont'yet know, talking of his father in the past tense. Ebert's review really nailed this point with his comparison to Greek Tragedy, though I don't think that the analgoy works fully, because there is no deas ex machina

Spoiler:

because the killer is set up to be Michael's killer throughout the film

it's just one more step on the road to inevitibility, and in this case perdition.

As much as I hate to say it, Harry Knowles' review is actually fairly spot on, from classifying this in the rank of gangster films to it's rank in this years pantheon.

ONe important distinction should be made, this is a gangster film in the tradition of Scarface (32), Little Caesar, and Miller's Crossing, not a mafia film such as Godfather, Goodfellas, and Casino.

Adam

[Edwin Pereyra]

Mark Pfeiffer wrote:

Quote:

I liked it but wasn't exactly bowled over like some of the early "best of the year" talk.

I agree. It's so easy to overrate this one.

~Edwin