Road to Perdition Essay example - 1016 Words

Director Sam Mendes’ Road to Perdition is the officially-approved US film of the moment, overwhelmingly endorsed by the media and starring â€Å"America’s favorite actor,† Tom Hanks. An unstated assumption is that the movie’s pedigree makes it an obligatory cultural or quasi-cultural experience for certain social layers. It is a gangster film with darkened images meant to impart an art-house quality. Set in the early Depression era, it is also insinuated that a social insight or two can be found lurking in the shadows. Road to Perdition, even more than Mendes’ previous much-acclaimed film, American Beauty, is fool’s gold. The filmmaker has once again wrapped up crude banalities in shiny tin foil. But at least the latter film made some pretense†¦show more content†¦A description in the movie’s screenplay highlights this point. Michael Jr. is â€Å"watching in silence, cautious yet fascinated by the mysteries of a father’s ritual. ... Sullivan removes his cufflinks and places them in a box of his personal things ... removes his tie and gracefully lays it on the bed ... takes off his jacket, revealing a holstered COLT 45, removes the holstered gun and places it on the bed.† In fact, this loving father and husband is nicknamed â€Å"The Angel of Death.† The portrayal of mob czar Nitti as a respectable and fair-minded businessman is equally ridiculous and reprehensible. Nitti, known as The Enforcer, ran the crime syndicate while Capone was in prison in late 1920s and early 1930s (he eventually committed suicide in 1943). This is the sort of company Nitti kept: â€Å"In 1933, Frank Nitti’s leading labor terrorist, Three Fingers Jack White, recruited Fur Sammons to help fight the Touhy gang in the labor wars of 1933. â€Å"It was an excellent choice, Sammons was a certified psychopath and a killer and he took enormous pride in both these facts. He specialized in labor terror although, like White, Sammons’ record was long and varied. â€Å"In 1900 Sammons and four others kidnapped an eleven-year-old schoolgirl off the street, raped her and than beat her so savagely she almost died. The girl weighed 85 pounds. They broke her nose,Show MoreRelatedThe Road to Perdition821 Words   |  4 Pages1. Analyse how one or more scenes showed the complexity of a character or individual in a visual or oral text. The Film ‘The Road To Perdition’, directed by Sam Mendes. Is a story where a father and his son travel across the wide and vast country named America. They are on the run from an unrelenting assassin. The film is set way back in the 1930’s America when the country was in the grip of immense gloominess. Embargo was still the law of the land and gangsters like Al Capone were at the heightRead MoreEssay on The Road to Perdition1580 Words   |  7 PagesThe Art of Film Film Review #1 The Road to Redemption The most appealing thing about Road to Perdition is its over-arching theme of redemption. Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks), an Irish mafia heavy, wants more than anything to keep his son from following in his criminal footsteps. Even though father and son will eventually drive to a place called Perdition to lay low, the story’s title suggests that Michael has for many years been traveling the road to hell. He understands as much, and wantsRead MoreHow Is Hong Kong Independent Essay934 Words   |  4 PagesHong Kong is an inalienable part of China, and this is our common sense is known since our childhood! For the Chinese, our identity is the most important part of the Chinese, so I understand how they impact to the students inner. The refused to perdition, only independent poster is everywhere, cultural square and the campus buildings and hanging independence banner, even around the tree. A mainland female student cant bear these posters, so she tore all the posters. However, sh e had been alreadyRead More Restraint Essay937 Words   |  4 Pagesleaving other people to deliver the ivory. He has lost all good judgment and mainly follows his lusts. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Kurtz had become, in a white man’s perspective, uncivilized and crazy. â€Å"Each station should be like a beacon on the road towards better things†¦ but also for humanizing, improving, instructing† (Conrad, 29). The stations are centers for modernization and civilization. The farther Kurtz ventures away from the stations, the less civilized he becomes. Kurtz followed no rulesRead MoreComparing the Downfalls of Sophocles Oedipus and Shakespeares Othello1262 Words   |  6 Pageseach characters life. Both were victims of different villians that would lead to their ill-fated demises. A horrible prophecy where Oedipus was to murder his father and then marry his mother was the villain in Oedipuss case. He was on a road to perdition since the day he was born, because the prophecy made his fate unavoidable. Oedipus and his family tried to take every action possible from avoiding the prophecy. Laius and Jocasta even tried to kill their cursed son at birth, but their plan wasRead More The Prostitute In Dostoevskys Crime and Punishment, Notes from Underground, and The Meek One1416 Words   |  6 Pagessocietal dissent. Providence is strikingly illustrated here: Raskolnikov cannot survive without Sonias aid, but neither could Sonia have been redeemed if Raskolnikov had not come along in need of redemption himself; she would have continued on the road to perdition from which her charitable impulses tore her. What is Dostoevsky illustrating here? He is showing us the cruelty of inner struggle and the fact that this struggle can only be won through the power of grace and redemption. Sonia struggles withRead MoreIrreconcilable Realities, an Essay Written by Aaron M. Kenrner1427 Words   |  6 Pagesconsider who is telling it. Kurosawa uses camera placement, transition techniques, lighting and zoom to show the audience that they have all the information to make a conclusion, but it is impossible. In the scene from Road To Perdition (Sam Mendes, 2002), distance and movement is used to give the scene a deeper meaning. In the beginning of the scene, the camera pans to show the inside of the restaurant but stops on mob boss, John Rooney who is walking through the door frameRead MoreThe Super Bowl1222 Words   |  5 Pagessell its soft drinks. Former GOP member Allen West stated â€Å"If we cannot be proud enough as a country to sing â€Å"America the Beautiful† in English in a commercial during the Super Bowl, by a company as American as they come — doggone we are on the road to perdition.†. Allen West like some other Americans feels that Coca-Cola is trampling on American Ideals to sell their drink. Even through America has no official many Americans feel that English is America’s language and if you can’t speak English thenRead MoreBeyond the Problem of Evil Essay6495 Words   |  26 Pagespunish human beings for something that he, by virtue of his omnipotence, seems (at first glance, at least) ultimately responsible for. Does Augustine assert that this seemingly untenable aspect of reality, which is implied by the conjunction of human perdition and divine omnipotence, is nothing? Or that it merely *appears* evil when considered in isolation from the totality of which it is a part? As we shall see, the answer is in one respect no, but in another, yes. The answer is no, insofar as AugustineRead MoreEssay David Berkowitz: the Son of Sam .44 Caliber Killer1950 Words   |  8 PagesThis theory maintains that people enter into law violating careers when they are labeled for their acts and organize their personalities around such labels. In essence, if you continuously told a person that he/she was a â€Å"worthless soul on the road to perdition,† that person may just end up in prison on their way to hell.†Ã‚  (para. 3). Due to the labeling which David endured in reality and in his delusions he was driven to a path that would cause criminal activity. This was a path that would lead him