Road To Perdition: Critic Reviews

In lots of ways that matter, this has been another terrifically confident achievement from Sam Mendes; the challenge will be to move on to simpler, less grandiloquent material on a more plausibly human scale.

Sam Mendes's 2002 follow-up to American Beauty finds him every bit as adept, arty, and Oscar hungry.

While crisply edited and unindulgent, Mendes' work is gratifyingly old-school in its rejection of modern-day stylistic agitation, the better to achieve a slow but inexorable build to its climax.

Powerful, beautiful film; ok for mature teens.

The top-billed actors deliver: Hanks with his resonant reserve and Newman in conveying Rooney's failed attempt to live up to his self-image as the ultimate just and loving patriarch. [Blu-ray]

...something more than the sum of its parts; namely, a gripping, touching, entertaining motion picture.

This last motif surges in the film's coda with a sequence that is 2002's most rapturous, a long, undulating shot that combines serenity and horror.

Director Sam Mendes is on course to become one of the great directors of this decade.

From the first ten minutes you can already guess this is a true epic and masterpiece.

It's Newman who really stands out. Despite his advanced years -- he's 77 -- the man still has remarkable presence.

Hanks and Newman are the personification of anguish and torn loyalty in a gripping, violent film that is part character study and part cat-and-mouse chase with classic western embellishments.

Road is so beautiful, so well composed and so tidy in its sense of justice that it never quite gets its hands dirty enough to evoke any true emotion.

Ploughing a furrowed brow, Hanks is fatally miscast -- except that the story turns so sentimental and bathetic, he's actually in his element.

A simple parable, starkly outlined, with talented actors shading these sketches with wisdom and detail.

An enjoyable, well-acted, written, and directed two hours.

It's wonderful to see Paul Newman in a great role again.

Mendes has proven that he must be counted among the greatest directors

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Easily the best movie so far in 2002, Road to Perdition holds its own against the finest films any year has to offer.

It is this year's first truly great film.

Esteticamente belo, mas emocionalmente vazio.

Along with cinematographer Conrad L. Hall, [Sam] Mendes has crafted a film that's just as exciting to look at as it is to watch.

The road they're on is too familiar, with not enough about turns.

Introspective, while never feeling ponderous ... The strength of the performances lies in their subtlety ...long, arduous, and heartbreaking - and worth every step of the journey.

Una pelicula oscura, precisa, por momentos grandiosa y casi siempre conmovedora.