Road to Perdition
Jun. 8th, 2011 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oselleThere was nothing on TV tonight so I decided to plug in a movie I haven't watched in years, Road to Perdition.
Road to Perdition is the sort of movie whose plot really does not withstand much scrutiny but my God, is it a feast for the senses. Set in the 1930s, it captures the texture of that era so perfectly that you feel as if you're there -- you can smell it and touch it and taste it.
I first saw this movie right around the time I became a Supernatural fan, and so much about this story of a father and son on the run from gangsters tied into the things I loved about SPN. This movie had a big influence on two of my fics, Lazarus Came Forth and Deguello; actually, there's a little bit of this in the All Saints series too.
I usually prefer substance over style, but when the style is this good I'm a lot more forgiving. There's so much about the look and feel of this movie that I wanted to see in SPN -- if I were showrunner, this is probably one of the movies that I would make the writers watch before they started writing the new season.
Road to Perdition is the sort of movie whose plot really does not withstand much scrutiny but my God, is it a feast for the senses. Set in the 1930s, it captures the texture of that era so perfectly that you feel as if you're there -- you can smell it and touch it and taste it.
I first saw this movie right around the time I became a Supernatural fan, and so much about this story of a father and son on the run from gangsters tied into the things I loved about SPN. This movie had a big influence on two of my fics, Lazarus Came Forth and Deguello; actually, there's a little bit of this in the All Saints series too.
I usually prefer substance over style, but when the style is this good I'm a lot more forgiving. There's so much about the look and feel of this movie that I wanted to see in SPN -- if I were showrunner, this is probably one of the movies that I would make the writers watch before they started writing the new season.
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Date: 2011-06-10 11:11 am (UTC)Tom Hanks is excellent in this film. Good to see him doing 'dark' for a change.
And I agree: when the style is this good, you can overlook a lot. :)
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Date: 2011-06-11 09:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-11 09:05 pm (UTC)If only! We can but hope, right? What an awesome concept though...
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Date: 2011-06-11 09:40 pm (UTC)The whole business about holding up the banks to steal mobster money really falls apart after one viewing, but honestly, who cares? No matter how many times you watch this movie, it never fails to dazzle the eye.
What an awesome concept though...
I think what I like most of all is the incredible isolation of the father-and-son duo as they flee through a barren landscape, beset by enemies. Every place in the movie, whether it's a rural diner or the middle of Chicago, somehow feels like an outpost at the end of the world, with the unity between the Sullivans being the only note of humanity and warmth. That's exactly the kind of spirit I'd have loved to see in SPN.