Road to Perdition (Blu-ray) (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Mob	Main Menu Audio & Animation Scene Selection Anim & Audio Audio Commentary Featurette-Making Of Deleted Scenes-11 +/- commentary Trailer-CD Soundtrack Featurette-Conrad Hall Doco Featurette-A Futher Exploration of the World of Road to Perdition Introduction-Director
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	116:58 (Case: 113)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Sam Mendes
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Tom Hanks Paul Newman Jude Law Tyler Hoechlin Jennifer Jason Leigh Stanley Tucci Daniel Craig
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$34.95	Music	Thomas Newman

     Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks) is a quietly spoken family man by night and a mob hit man by day, working for local district boss John Rooney (Paul Newman), who is several heads down the line from Al Capone at the height of his reign. Michael's life is turned upside down when his son Michael Jr. sneaks along on a job one night and witnesses him at work along with the boss' son Connor (Daniel Craig). As if this hiccup in father/son relations wasn't enough, Connor becomes paranoid about the situation and decides to eliminate the evidence but instead manages to kill Michael's wife and other son. Fearful for their lives and eager for vengeance, Sullivan and son hit the road to seek approval from the boss' boss, Frank Nitty (Stanley Tucci), to take revenge. When that proves hard to come by, the pair attempts to persuade a change of mind by cleaning out the mob's banks at the point of a gun. Unsurprisingly, that soon puts the mob's slipperiest hit man on their trail (Jude Law).

     The Road to Perdition is a film that oozes style. The film's visual flair evokes a dark mood that more than makes up for the obvious shortfalls in the plot itself. The tone simultaneously captures the juxtaposition of both the film's themes, the gritty underworld and familial bonds, without forgetting either at any point. Hanks is oddly cast as Sullivan. Though the role is quite a diversion from his usual type, the warm everyman persona he brings to every role (irrespective of how well it belongs) actually manages to complement the dark side of the character surprisingly well in this instance and helps the film rise above its fairly straight-forward revenge plot.

     The film's stunning cinematography deservedly won the late Conrad Hall an Oscar. Every scene is beautifully lit, capturing the mood perfectly, and expertly shot. More than a few scenes look truly stunning. One of the film's climactic points, shot at night in heavy rain as two of the main protagonists face of for one last time, is arguably one of the best looking scenes of the decade (and makes for a reference quality Blu-ray demo).

     The Road to Perdition is a great movie that holds up well nearly a decade on and likely will for years to come.

Video

     The film is presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio in 1080p. The video is near reference quality. The image is clear and sharp. The colours are rich and the palette shows great depth. There is an excellent level of shadow detail in the image. The image is spotless and shows no sign of any sort of compression artefacts or undue edge enhancement.

     The film features a range of subtitles. The English subtitles are well timed and accurate to the spoken word.

Video Ratings Summary

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Audio

     The film features English, Italian and Spanish DTS HD MA 5.1 audio tracks. The audio is of an excellent standard. The dialogue is clear and well placed in the mix. The audio is well synchronised to the video

     The film features a powerful orchestral score from Thomas Newman, one that borders on going over the top time and again but manages to stop just short. The score is presented magnificently in the mix.

     The surrounds are used to perfection, particularly during the action sequences. The subwoofer is used intelligently, amping up the action and supporting the rest well also.

Audio Ratings Summary

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Sam Mendes Feature Introduction (1:17)

     Director Sam Mendes spares a minute (literally) of his time to provide an old fashioned warm, fuzzy "thanks for watching and aren't these Blu-ray things neat" introduction. Altogether unnecessary but pleasant.

Audio Commentary by Director Sam Mendes

    An meticulous and ever-interesting commentary track from the director.

A Cinematic Life: The Art and Influence of Conrad Hall Featurette (26:37)

    A reasonably interesting featurette that reflects on the work of legendary cinematographer Conrad Hall, though focuses heavily on The Road to Perdition. Well worth a look, though not terribly deep stuff.

The Library: A Further Exploration of the World of Road to Perdition Interactive Content

    A series of text-based tid bits about the period of the film and the themes it touches on.

Deleted Scenes (22:09)

    11 deleted scenes with optional commentary. Well worth a look for fans, although none really take the film places it doesn't already go.

HBO Special: The Making of Road to Perdition Featurette (25:02)

     A generic making of featurette. Worth a look, but largely fluff.

Theatrical Trailer (2:52)

     A reasonable theatrical trailer.

    The Region 1 and Region 4 editions are identical save for the language tracks. The Region 1 features English, French and Spanish, although the latter two are Dolby Digital 5.1, which is slightly inferior to the non-English tracks on the Region 4.

     A moody, visually spectacular mob action movie that holds up as well today as it did when it was first released.

     Audio and video presentation are top notch - good enough to be demo worthy for fans. The extras are diverse and reasonably worthwhile.

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