Monday, July 22, 2002

That's right, motherfuckers... I'M BACK! In a sense, at least... still haven't fixed my DSL problem *grumble grumble*, but I do have a working dial-up connection. So that's something. And Jesus, do I have a backlog to work off. Problem is, it's mostly films I wasn't too enthused about to begin with and really couldn't give a flying shit about right now. So I'll likely be off my game for a bit. Bear with me.

But before we get to old dumb crap, let's have something new, shall we?

Road to Perdition (2002)

A fine film, indeed -- beautifully crafted, well-directed, well-acted, well-shot... well-done in most every department, really. With the incredible wealth of talent in front of and behind the camera, did anyone expect anything different to occur? But come on everyone... let's hold the hossanahs in check a bit. It's a good film, but it wants to be a great film so badly that it tears a back muscle and has to crawl around on the ground while waiting for someone to help it up and get it to the nearest mattress for rest and recuperation. (I think I may have stretched that metaphor a bit further than it was supposed to go.) What's missing from this otherwise-flawless film is a sense of importance or grandeur, a kind of epic scope. That's not to say they don't try to force it, but the film is essentially a small and intimate story. When a small story is artificially inflated to seem important, it can result in (among other things) an exaggerated sense of audience manipulation. Or, to be blunt, it's as plain and unwieldy a button-pushing piece of entertainment as any of Spielberg's less impressive efforts, especially in terms of the film's central father-son relationship. Jude Law and Tom Hanks (who makes for a surprisingly good curmudgeon) manage to keep the treacle at bay for as long as they can, but they can't do anything about the ho-hum coda. (Thomas Newman's score, which alternately rips off his own score from American Beauty and the lousier impulses of John Williams, doesn't really help.) Okay, now that I've vented.... it's still way better than most summer movies and probably most movies in general. It's just not as good as it thinks it is.

Grade: B