Sam Mendes: Ranking His Films - From Worst To Best
5. Road To Perdition
Perhaps the most visually exciting of Sam Mendes films, Road To Perdition, as shot by the director and cinematographer Conrad L. Hall, is a shadowy, suppressed affair, bathing its characters in a metaphorical darkness rarely perforated by light. Starring an against-type Tom Hanks as an American-Irish mobster, the film, Mendes second, is a complete departure from the conversation ridden tragicomedy of American Beauty, instead talking mainly through camerawork and shadow play. It is a distinctly mute affair. Thats not to say that Perdition is all style and no substance, however, and the film certainly is rich in its depictions of the bond between fathers and sons. Its just that this one really is more of a treat for the eyes, and rightly so since its based on the graphic novel of the same name, written and illustrated by Max Allan Collins and Richard Piers Rayner. Mendes entry into the gangster-film canon is helped immeasurably here by a stunning late-career performance from Paul Newman, as well as by the presence of a pre-Bond Daniel Craig (as the despicable Connor Rooney), whose time here would ultimately see him seek out Mendes for Skyfall some ten years later.
