02 August 2002

Finally saw Road to Perdition, which includes the year's best line of unintentionally funny dialogue:

Tom Hanks (to his son): "If anything happens to me, go to Reverend Lynch at First Methodist and tell him what happened. Don't go to Father Kelly!"

As for the rest of the movie, it's the sort of lovely, well-crafted film that's so careful and cold that it makes you wonder why this story needed to be told in the first place -- a question that wouldn't come up if the movie were more of a turn-on, or had even the slightest spark of energy or life. On the bright side, you do get to see Jude Law deliver an impressive impersonation of an Edward Gorey cartoon. But in the end, there's more excitement and interest in ten minutes (any ten minutes) of L.A. Confidential than in all of Road to Perdition, if only because L.A. Confidential wasn't afraid to embrace the pulp along with the pretty pictures.

No comments: