SHERDOG MOVIE CLUB: Week 43 Discussion - Road to Perdition

[Peteyandjia]

The first 30 minutes is Tom as the Fed-ex manager. He ran that place like a military operation.

Delivering packages on time was a life and death matter, as was evidenced by him refusing to open the packages for years, despite being stranded.

In the end he even delivers one of the packages himself after carrying it all the way on the raft.

It wasn't the least bit subtle. The fed-ex logo was on display non-stop.

I friggin love Cast Away. I don't like commercials, or over-done ads in movies, but I thought this was an example where it wasn't exploitative. I mean, he was a FedEx guy, and he's surrounded by those packages. So it at least made sense. If you were working in a mailroom at the time though then I can understand how it would have been more aggravating to you.

 

[sleepwalk]

I remember really liking this one. My father was impressed that it 1) was from a comic and 2) made Tom Hanks seem believable as a badass. And I had to watch it with dad because... well, c'mon.

 

[iThrillhouse]

Really great movie,

My one main gripe with the movie was that, aside from the rainy shootout, the music in this movie was really bad. Like I get its a movie that heavily plays on father-son dynamics, but there were some bits that were just WAY too uplifting for a heavy 1930's gangster revenge drama.

Cinematography was great, Tyler Hoechlin wasn't a shit actor as a kid so that helped a lot too.

Movie just made me want to rewatch Boardwalk Empire again. This movie was ahead of its time. I almost couldn't believe this movie came out in 2002...15 years old and yet it looks like it was made yesterday. Testament to how great Conrad Hall's work was on this film.

The ending though

Spoiler

Law's character was comically ridiculous looking. To the point of Law's character being completely out of place in the entire movie. Like if he wasn't made out to be like some comic-book villain it would've worked, but when he's dressed like the riddler and has mannerisms of the joker its just fuckin weird.

also I'm pretty sure that kid would end up in a life of crime...no way he doesn't after his whole family gets brutally murdered

also the ending monologue who is asking this kid about "Michael Sullivan" when he's growing up on a farm? kind of a lapse of logic in the monologue but whatever

movie is still a good story with some really well shot scenes and acting from all...

Was wierd seeing Daniel Craig in this, he looked sickly skinny..

I wonder what this movie would've looked like if Stephen Spielberg directed it, lord knows he loves father-son relationship movies

8/10

 

[europe1]

My one main gripe with the movie was that, aside from the rainy shootout, the music in this movie was really bad. Like I get its a movie that heavily plays on father-son dynamics, but there were some bits that were just WAY too uplifting for a heavy 1930's gangster revenge drama.

I sort of got the impression that Mendes was trying to pull the Scorsese-trick. Scorsese often plays soft and uplifting music during scenes of violence or depravity so to make them seem more realistic, and thus also more effectful and disturbing.

I didn't find it all to bad.

Spoiler

Law's character was comically ridiculous looking. To the point of Law's character being completely out of place in the entire movie. Like if he wasn't made out to be like some comic-book villain it would've worked, but when he's dressed like the riddler and has mannerisms of the joker its just fuckin weird.

I sort of got the impression that they constructed Law's character as a foil for Hanks. Hanks is humane and morally ambigious -- Law is a representation of "pure" evil. Hanks is calm, dignified and human -- while Law is "subhuman", very rat-like in his mannerism, almost looking like a goblin with his hunched shoulders and bad teeth. Hanks cares about life and the future while Law is only interested in death. And so on...

It didn't really bother me. I kinda thought it worked well in a thematic sense.

 

[iThrillhouse]

I sort of got the impression that Mendes was trying to pull the Scorsese-trick. Scorsese often plays soft and uplifting music during scenes of violence or depravity so to make them seem more realistic, and thus also more effectful and disturbing.

I didn't find it all to bad.

That makes sense, there were just a few scenes in the beginning where the absence of music would have been a bit more powerful than the swelling orchestra...or when T.Hanks is teaching T.Hoechlin how to drive the music is so abnormally chipper/high spirited, that it made me go "oh were in a period revenge drama i forgot"

I sort of got the impression that they constructed Law's character as a foil for Hanks. Hanks is humane and morally ambigious -- Law is a representation of "pure" evil. Hanks is calm, dignified and human -- while Law is "subhuman", very rat-like in his mannerism, almost looking like a goblin with his hunched shoulders and bad teeth. Hanks cares about life and the future while Law is only interested in death. And so on...

It didn't really bother me. I kinda thought it worked well in a thematic sense.

that makes a lot of sense actually.

just he stands out so much to everyone else in the movie who is pretty straight-cut/straightforward, he's almost like a foil to everyone introduced in this movie