Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks) is an enforcer and exterminator for his gang boss and father figure, John Rooney (Paul Newman). Trouble is, he is being betrayed and, ultimately, hunted down by his brother figure, Connor Rooney (Daniel Craig), who is himself a kind of a Richard Widmark figure. Connor goes gunning for Michael, with tragic consequences for the Sullivan family.
Michael and his son, Michael Jr. (Tyler Hoechlin), go on the lam, robbing banks of their ill-gotten deposits from the Capone gang. As a result, they are pursued by yet another gunman (Jude Law) who works for Capone, and who seems to be trying to meld his hobby of photography with his profession as a hired killer. Pere and fils hope to fight their way through to perdition--well, that's Perdition-on-the-Lake, where Aunt Sarah has a nice house and a dog waiting for them, at least for Junior.
There are enough cold-blooded murders in this movie to keep theaters cool through Labor Day, despite that the story is essentially about the relationships between fathers and sons, and how maybe some good can come out of even the worst of lives.
But the movie is aimed more toward the eyes than the heart. I haven't seen the graphic novel (so-called, I suppose, because of having better production values than a regular comic book), but I bet I could pick out 90% of its panels from the movie, which seems to move from panel to panel.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. The shots are well-composed and effectively lit, and I thoroughly enjoyed the film as a moving "comic". It is stylish, if you're looking for that, but not at all realistic, if you're looking for that.
The setting is somewhere in the Calumet Region just south and east of Chicago, a land of steel mills, oil refineries, gambling and prostitution and, at the time of this story, speakeasies. I grew up near there and wish director Mendes had taken more advantage of the exteriors heavy industry can provide for a gangster movie such as this. When all the mills and plants and refineries are going full blast, they could provide inspiration for the graphic novel version of Dante's "Inferno", with perdition to spare. It was awe-inspiring, but nowadays is considerably quieter and a whole lot rustier.
There are also some nice shots of the flat prairies of northeastern Illinois and northwestern Indiana (supposedly so, at least--it sure looks like my old stomping grounds) and the lovely dunes at the southern tip of Lake Michigan. And a flatland crossroads that looks suspiciously like the one in Hanks' "Cast Away", or, more appropriately, in Hitchcock's "North by Northwest". It brought a tear of nostalgia to this old flatlander's eye.
I recommend this one as a theatrical, visual delight. But, despite all the blood, betrayal, and mayhem--and the urban industrial setting--the movie is not at all gritty.
Michael and his son, Michael Jr. (Tyler Hoechlin), go on the lam, robbing banks of their ill-gotten deposits from the Capone gang. As a result, they are pursued by yet another gunman (Jude Law) who works for Capone, and who seems to be trying to meld his hobby of photography with his profession as a hired killer. Pere and fils hope to fight their way through to perdition--well, that's Perdition-on-the-Lake, where Aunt Sarah has a nice house and a dog waiting for them, at least for Junior.
There are enough cold-blooded murders in this movie to keep theaters cool through Labor Day, despite that the story is essentially about the relationships between fathers and sons, and how maybe some good can come out of even the worst of lives.
But the movie is aimed more toward the eyes than the heart. I haven't seen the graphic novel (so-called, I suppose, because of having better production values than a regular comic book), but I bet I could pick out 90% of its panels from the movie, which seems to move from panel to panel.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. The shots are well-composed and effectively lit, and I thoroughly enjoyed the film as a moving "comic". It is stylish, if you're looking for that, but not at all realistic, if you're looking for that.
The setting is somewhere in the Calumet Region just south and east of Chicago, a land of steel mills, oil refineries, gambling and prostitution and, at the time of this story, speakeasies. I grew up near there and wish director Mendes had taken more advantage of the exteriors heavy industry can provide for a gangster movie such as this. When all the mills and plants and refineries are going full blast, they could provide inspiration for the graphic novel version of Dante's "Inferno", with perdition to spare. It was awe-inspiring, but nowadays is considerably quieter and a whole lot rustier.
There are also some nice shots of the flat prairies of northeastern Illinois and northwestern Indiana (supposedly so, at least--it sure looks like my old stomping grounds) and the lovely dunes at the southern tip of Lake Michigan. And a flatland crossroads that looks suspiciously like the one in Hanks' "Cast Away", or, more appropriately, in Hitchcock's "North by Northwest". It brought a tear of nostalgia to this old flatlander's eye.
I recommend this one as a theatrical, visual delight. But, despite all the blood, betrayal, and mayhem--and the urban industrial setting--the movie is not at all gritty.