Time is a Flat Circle or: Haven't I Seen True Detective Before?

by Tony Dayoub

When True Detective promos started popping up on HBO months ahead of its debut, it was difficult to figure what it was all going to be about. About all one could dig up was that it was an 8-episode series, shot in Louisiana (employing a few of the actors of HBO's just-cancelled Treme), starring two well-established stars, Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson—neither of whom were on the usual descending trajectory movie stars travel when they decide to move to television—with a title that evoked the pulpy aesthetic of the mystery magazine that ran for decades.

First Look: HBO's True Detective (2014)

The Chicago Way: Crime Story back on DVD for its 25th Anniversary

by Tony Dayoub

Clockwise from top: Stephen Lang (as David Abrams), Anthony Denison (as Ray Luca), Darlanne Fluegel (as Julie Torello), Dennis Farina (as Lt. Mike Torello)

On September 18, 1986, director Michael Mann (Heat) made good on his promising career in TV and film with the debut of his new period cops-and-robbers saga, Crime Story. Not only did Crime Story’s feature-quality production design live up to that of its TV antecedent, Mann’s stylish Miami Vice; Crime Story also fulfilled its aim to present a morally complex world in which it was often difficult to tell those who broke the law from those who upheld it. Set in 1963, the show explores the multiple facets of a young hood’s rise to power in the Chicago Mob through the viewpoints of its three protagonists. Ray Luca (Anthony Denison) is the pompadoured criminal quickly ascending the ranks of the “Outfit.” Lieutenant Mike Torello (Dennis Farina) is the cop in charge of Chicago’s Major Crime Unit (or MCU) who bends the law in the service of justice. And David Abrams (Stephen Lang) is the idealistic young lawyer caught between the two men and their obsessive cat-and-mouse game. Today, a little over 25 years since its premiere, Crime Story: The Complete Series (Image Entertainment) comes out on DVD. At press time, review copies were not made available, so it’s impossible to ascertain if any improvements have been made over the questionable video quality of previous iterations. But this short-lived series, an influential precursor to the well-written serials littered throughout cable this decade (i.e., The Sopranos, Mad Men, Justified, and others), is worth owning despite any potential issues with its digital transfer.

TV Review: Boardwalk Empire (2010)

by Tony Dayoub

I try to see.
Well, I guess that I'm blind.
It's fine with me
'Cause i'm going to keep trying.
And I've made disappointment
My very best friend.
I wait and see
Who you're going to be
And when.

-"Straight Up and Down" by The Brian Jonestown Massacre

From the opening credit sequence in which we hear the lonely guitar of the Brian Jonestown Massacre (a band I previously mistook for the Rolling Stones) as waves roll into the Jersey seashore, I knew Boardwalk Empire had me. A quick survey around the internet reveals just as many who hated the opening track, but I would guess many of these folks are oblivious to the stylings of this first episode's director, Martin Scorsese. While I can't recall such a blatantly anachronistic use of music in any of his previous films, Scorsese has always had an instinctive grasp of how to marry music to film to create cinema. In this case, "Straight Up and Down" feels so right that to quibble about it is a petty bit of complaining. But to do it after you've taken a peek at its lyrics is even more wrongheaded.

Movie Review: Mesrine: Public Enemy #1 (L'ennemi public n°1) (2008)

by Tony Dayoub

A couple of weeks ago I caught an interview with Vincent Cassel on Charlie Rose in which, while promoting his Mesrine two-parter, he explained his approach to famed bank robber Jacques Mesrine. Chief among his demands on the film's producers was his desire to play the man as the criminal he was, not the mythical Robin Hood he portrayed hiself as in his memoir. So my expectation going into the second part, Mesrine: Public Enemy #1 (L'ennemi public n°1), was that this film would be the grittier and more overtly critical of the two films, a takedown of the roguish image depicted in Mesrine: Killer Instinct (reviewed here). Imagine my disappointment when, midway through the film, Jacques gives a 100,000 francs to a poor family who just smuggled him through a police roadblock, thanking them for their service.

Movie Review: Red Riding: 1983 (2009)

by Tony Dayoub

The weight of the past hangs heavily on top cop Maurice Jobson (David Morrisey). For years he has carried the guilt over his involvement with the renegade cops of the West Yorkshire Constabulary and their preference of expediency over thoroughness in the child abduction case of 1974. Now, with the case closed and the perpetrator in prison, another series of abductions (too similar to be pinned on a copycat) begins. And it is too much for this compromised public servant to bear.

Anand Tucker (Leap Year) presents the events of Red Riding: 1983 like a memory play. Impressionistic in its photography, elliptical in its explanations, and nonlinear in its chronology, this entry in the trilogy is the spiritual chapter after the visceral action of 1974 and the intellectual exposition of 1980. Apropos of its approach, it nominates three characters to form a sort of mystical trinity to shepherd the triptych to its conclusion.

Seeing as 1974's viewpoint is that of a reporter, and 1980's belongs to a cop, it would be easy to pin the perspective for 1983 on the attorney who brings us into this story, John Piggott (Mark Addy). But the complex storyline is as thorny in its telling as it is internally. One of the other unlikely heroes is the street hustling B.J. (Robert Sheehan), who seeks redemption for his silence about the abductions so far. The third participant in this trinity is Jobson, sidelined for the previous two parts but roused into action by an unlikely romance with an unusual oracle (Saskia Reeves).

The shifting narrative devices and protagonists serve to add ambiguity and a feeling of displacement in the viewer. The dislocation created by the unusual structure forces one to be less concerned with the procedural aspects so central to the last part, and instead hone in on the moral ramifications of Jobson's inaction, B.J.'s silence, and Piggott's deliberate ignorance. One becomes attuned to the state of mind of these three players as they each pursue the killer, and their repective redemption, in their own way.

The greatest compliment one can give to Tucker and Red Riding: 1983 is that after it is over one wants to see the trilogy all over again, not simply to figure out how all the pieces fit together, but to wallow in the dark atmosphere of this long-form piece of cinema one rarely experiences anymore.

Red Riding: 1983 is playing as part of the Red Riding: Special Roadshow Edition, today through February 11th exclusively at the IFC Center, 323 Sixth Avenue at West Third Street, New York, NY 10014, (212) 924-7771

It will also play February 14th, 17th, and 18th, at Landmark's Nuart Theatre, 11272 Santa Monica Boulevard, West Los Angeles, CA 90025,
(310) 281-8223.

It opens in select theaters nationwide on February 19th.

Click here for more posts on Red Riding.

Movie Review: Red Riding: 1980 (2009)

by Tony Dayoub

Red Riding: 1980 begins more than five years after the last film. Reporter Eddie Dunford is dead. Builder John Dawson is dead. Paula Garland is dead. Crooked cop Bob Craven (Sean Harris) is now a detective. Chief Bill Molloy (Warren Clarke) is buckling under the pressure of a new set of serial murders terrorizing Yorkshire. And top cop Maurice Jobson (David Morrisey) still sits on the periphery of the action, ever watchful yet decidely unhelpful.

Into this tense atmosphere comes Peter Hunter (Paddy Considine), a dedicated officer assigned to re-investigate the unsolved Yorkshire Ripper case currently bedeviling Molloy. As cocky as Dunford was in his approach, Hunter is respectful, earnest. Yet even though the story perspective has shifted from that of a reporter to that of a cop, Hunter is just as much an outsider as Dunford was. And he's got problematic baggage, too—a needy wife whose miscarriage some time ago forced him to leave the Ripper case once already, and also led him into the arms of a fellow cop, Helen Marshall (Maxine Peake).

One also begins to sense there's something sinister about the Reverend Martin Laws (Peter Mullan), not entirely helpful in the last film's investigation, but Johnny-on-the-spot in this investigation. He provides a shoulder to cry on for Helen. But more importantly, he manages to deliver a confidential informant named B.J. (Robert Sheehan) to Hunter. B.J.'s information leads Hunter away from the Ripper killings and to the Karachi shooting that proves so pivotal in the previous film.

This is the weakest entry to the series because of its expository nature. That being said, it is a fine procedural with an instructive look into the cop culture of the West Yorkshire Constabulary. It is also a savage indictment of the insular culture of a small town and its police department. Hunter uncovers a shadow police force within the department, one whose motto is, "The North, where we do what we want." Though the Ripper case recedes into the background, it soon becomes clear that it is a reminder to the dirty cops of the earlier set of serial murders. It is also the impetus for Hunter's inquiry into the Karachi shooting, a key building block in the cops' conspiratorial act, without which the crooked detectives' silence starts to crumble.

A lot of what one learns in 1980 revolves around the notion that Hunter's honorable and lawful methods serve him no better in his attempt to stand up to corruption than Dunford's foolhardy stunts did. It's a bit obvious, which contributes to the familiarity of this chapter in the trilogy. But pieces are coming together, and as a second act this film is more than suitable in propelling the viewer to the third and final chapter of Red Riding.

Red Riding: 1980 is playing as part of the Red Riding: Special Roadshow Edition, today through February 11th exclusively at the IFC Center, 323 Sixth Avenue at West Third Street, New York, NY 10014, (212) 924-7771

It will also play February 13th, 14th, 16th and 18th, at Landmark's Nuart Theatre, 11272 Santa Monica Boulevard, West Los Angeles, CA 90025,
(310) 281-8223.

It opens in select theaters nationwide on February 19th.

Click here for more posts on Red Riding.

Movie Review: Red Riding: 1974 (2009)

by Tony Dayoub

Red Riding: 1974 only seems like a bracing return to the dark British crime thrillers of the seventies like Mike Hodges' Get Carter (1971), or the serial killer genre explored in The Silence of the Lambs (1991). A more accurate touchstone would probably be such disparate films as Straw Dogs (1971) or The Conversation (1974). From the former, it derives the outsider's perspective when obstructed by small-town provincial attitudes. From the latter, it borrows the sinking feeling of a protagonist so forcefully assailed by corrupt forces he may end up stained—or worse—from the experience.

Director Julian Jarrold (Brideshead Revisited) sets the trilogy in impressive motion with a murkily-lit look at a series of murders involving young girls in Northern England. The perspective on the case belongs to Eddie Dunford (Andrew Garfield), a cocky reporter who strides onto the relatively close-minded Yorkshire scene with little regard for the locals. A southerner, Eddie never quite meshes with his fellow reporters, the local constabulary, or even the families of the victims or witnesses involved in the case. The one person Eddie does seem to have most in common with is the slimy sophisticate, John Dawson (Sean Bean), a millionaire who pays off the local police force to keep his empty lot free of gypsy settlers as he prepares to start construction on a mall.

Eddie and John's tenuous link is their remove from the backwater environs with its unrefined denizens. That and Paula Garland (Rebecca Hall), a mother of one of the victims who is sleeping with each of them. Like Dustin Hoffman's David Sumner in Straw Dogs, Eddie is overconfident, believing he's got the Yorkshire folks all figured out, or even that he's one step ahead of them. But like Sumner, he is out of his element when facing the local bullies, in this case crooked cops like Bob Craven (Sean Harris), a bully who always proves most threatening when attacking Eddie's masculinity. The primary difference between him and John is the builder's willingness to play by the rules of this berg, a place where he doesn't belong any more than Eddie does.

On this level, the film is evocative of the seventies conspiracy thrillers like The Conversation. Eddie Dunford navigates through the filthy intricacies of the serial murder case, slowly finding connections to the cops, their benefactor John Dawson, and even his own newspaper. Like Gene Hackman's Harry Caul, Eddie believes his integrity gives him a slight edge over all of those he encounters, a professional distance if you will, one which he thinks will protect him against the depravity all around him. He blows off John's attempts to buy him off because he is self-assured in his notion that he is uncorruptible. It is only when John callously sics the dirty cops on Paula that Eddie realizes how mired he is in the wrong side of Yorkshire's demoralizing microcosm.

In look and feel, Red Riding: 1974 resembles another recent period film which examines a serial killer through the eyes of a reporter. That would be Fincher's Zodiac (2007). And though it quite doesn't achieve that film's multi-leveled complexity, it does make for an interesting first chapter in what could be classified as a time-lapse look at a small city oppressed by its own sinfulness. Those expecting a typical serial killer exercise may be pleasantly surprised. Red Riding: 1974's lurid serial killings are only a hook to draw viewers into its penetrating exploration of into the nature of venality.

Red Riding: 1974 is playing as part of the Red Riding: Special Roadshow Edition, today through February 11th exclusively at the IFC Center, 323 Sixth Avenue at West Third Street, New York, NY 10014, (212) 924-7771

It will also play February 12 - 14th and February 18th, at Landmark's Nuart Theatre, 11272 Santa Monica Boulevard, West Los Angeles, CA 90025,
(310) 281-8223.

It opens in select theaters nationwide on February 19th.

Click here for more posts on Red Riding.

Introduction to Red Riding: A Roadshow Recollection

by Lissette Decos

NEW YORK - I can officially say that Terence Stamp and I once went to the movies together. Well, I went to the movies, and he sat seven rows behind me. And it was actually a series of three movies that played back to back when The Red Riding Trilogy premiered at the 47th New York Film Festival in October. Yes, The Limey and I stuck it out through all three feature-length films (a 7-hour experience) for the love of independent cinema. Personally, I also hoped there'd be an “I survived The Red Riding Trilogy Marathon” t-shirt on the way out.

These films, which could also be called “Too Many Cigarettes in the 70’s and 80’s,” are adaptations of the Red Riding Quartet novels (with a cult following in England) written by David Peace. The stories are set against real-life serial murders that took place in Yorkshire, England. The movie trilogy is a great reflection of the times delivered in a beautiful film noir package, creating it’s own subgenre—Yorkshire Noir—with its own class of crooked cops, dirty businessmen, redemption-requiring heroes and the best femme fatales Northern England has to offer. The characters are superbly acted by some of England’s top talent including Mark Addy, Sean Bean, Andrew Garfield, Rebecca Hall, David Morrissey, Peter Mullan, and Paddy Considine... well, you'd recognize them if you saw them. Each film was given a different director and each one interweaves seamlessly between a 3 year time period, within the crimes, and even the lives of the crime-stoppers themselves.

In one scene, two detectives who've had an affair (a man and a woman) sit in a car as they check out a crime scene where a woman has been brutally murdered. As they discuss the crime they switch to their affair. He observes the roped-off area as he tells her how he regrets their affair and feels it was immoral. You clearly get the sense that they are framing their affair as its own metaphorical crime, a crime of passion, the slick, cool stuff of noir.

I really enjoyed the first two films, 1974 and 1980. Unfortunately, as the mystery begins to get solved the last film loses some steam for me. The good news is each film stands on its own. But even with its weaknesses you may want to see the final film, 1983, just to get some closure.

After the screening, the directors of the first two films, Julian Jarrold and James Marsh, answered questions along with producers Andrew Eaton and Wendy Brazington. One woman whined that the subtitles weren’t necessary. I actually agree. There were a few words that weren’t in my British vernacular, but I could have gone without the subtitles throughout. One film-student-looking guy wanted to know if the directors watched any films in particular for inspiration. After trying to dodge the question, Jarrold finally admitted to watching films like The Conversation (1974) and other conspiracy theory films of the 70s for ideas.

My arm in the air was completely ignored so I didn’t get to ask about the decision to use a different format for each film. The first was shot on 16mm, the second on 35mm, and the last one with a Red One digital camera. The last film looks the most unusual, with a less polished feel. But on my way out, I did get to meet the distributor and ask him how they plan to release the films in theatres, covertly asking him if he expects people to sit for seven hours... and if they would get t-shirts. He said they are still figuring it out, but perhaps a few places will show them all in one day while others will space them out.

I actually do hope that they play them all in one day. This unique movie-going experience allows for audience camaraderie and discussions during the intermission. Hopefully, your seats are as comfy as the ones at the Walter Reade Theater in New York.

Red Riding: Special Roadshow Edition plays today through February 11th exclusively at the IFC Center, 323 Sixth Avenue at West Third Street, New York, NY 10014, (212) 924-7771

Click here for more posts on Red Riding.

Blu-ray Review: Gomorrah (2008)

by Tony Dayoub



Matteo Garrone's Gomorrah is one of the films I missed at last year's New York Film Festival. Too bad, I thought, since it had won the Grand Prix at Cannes—one of the few awards I put some stock in—earlier that year. It has been MIA on home video for quite a long time, relatively speaking. But tomorrow it debuts on Criterion DVD and Blu-ray, as part of a larger distribution deal between IFC Films and Criterion that will include such other festival favorites like Hunger, and two of my personal favorites, Che and A Christmas Tale. This is an excellent boost for IFC Films, of course. But is this a good deal for the Criterion brand, long thought of as the most prestigious home video company?

De Palma Blog-A-Thon: Scarface (1983) and Carlito's Way (1993)

by Tony Dayoub



...Cuba y Puerto Rico son
de un pájaro las dos alas,
reciben flores y balas
sobre el mismo corazón...

Translation:

...Cuba and Puerto Rico are
a dove's two wings,
receiving flowers or bullets
over the same heart...
-from the poem "A Cuba" by Lola Rodriguez de Tió

I find it difficult to address two of Brian De Palma's most atypical movies, Scarface and Carlito's Way, because of how closely I, a Cuban American, identify with them. Like the Puerto Rican Carlito Brigante (Al Pacino) I grew up going to school in an Hispanic neighborhood in the late seventies. Miami, back then, was mostly populated by retirees and snowbirds, and the school I went to near Coral Way had a diverse group of students, some from the barrio called Little Havana. While I never faced the kind of violence Carlito experienced in his own barrio firsthand, it was not unheard of. Friends of friends belonged to the local gang, the Latin Kings. Seeing a knife pulled out in a fight was not unusual back then. And there were always rumors of someone who owned a gun.




A lot changed in 1980, with the arrival of those we called the Marielitos. My elementary school's student demographic changed overnight. The once diverse cross-section of students I was familiar with gave way to a huge new subculture of immigrant Cubans, many of them poor, and feeling dislocated. I, who grew up watching The Six Million Dollar Man and Starsky and Hutch, found it difficult to understand why some had never even owned a TV. And though I was fluent in Spanish (indeed, it was my first language), I could never hold, much less keep up a conversation with those that came in the Mariel boatlift. They simply spoke too fast, threw too many puzzling expressions out for me to ever get on the same wavelength. It was all a bit alienating.

Crime went up. Race riots became frequent in some of the poorer neighborhoods (not strictly Cuban ones, I should point out). Drugs became a vehicle for quick and easy monetary success in a society for proud immigrants that wanted to work, yet faced many obstacles in assimilating quickly into society. In retrospect, my school was one of the safer ones facing these problems because of its relative distance from these neighborhoods. But you still saw some of it. My seventh-grade friend Neal, was five years older than all his other peers, because he had been let out of juvie (where he was incarcerated for car theft) on the condition he attend school again. His legs were covered with scars, from dog bites and barbed wire from his attempts to escape detention... or so he told me. Who knew? I was a kid, fascinated by dangerous looking big talkers because of my own deficiencies when it came to defending myself. Neal knew I could help him get in good graces with this pretty young friend of mine, Judy, who everybody had a crush on. And even though I was unsuccessful in my attempts to get them together, he never forgot that I tried. His loyalty, his reputation, and his friendship, were like an invisible shield that helped protect me from getting bullied, and in fact, helped me get along with some of his friends in the Kings. So I've always had sympathy for people like Tony Montana (also Al Pacino) and Carlito Brigante.

You didn't see too many Puerto Ricans in Miami, though. They had immigrated much earlier to New York, where they assimilated much faster than the Cubans ever did in Miami. Nuyoricans, though, were responsible for paving the way for Cubans here in the U.S. Musicians like the Fania All-Stars supplied the soundtrack to our lives, showcasing such stars like the Cuban Celia Cruz and the Puerto Rican Hector Lavoe. Puerto Ricans shared something with us Cubans that the rest of Latin America didn't. They were from the Caribbean. They ate the same food as we did (tacos and nachos are absent in those cultures, where black beans and rice are the staple). Where most of the rest of Latin America was proud of their Native American roots, the Cubans, Puerto Ricans and Dominicans were the product of a culture where Spaniards had eradicated nearly all the Indians and instead integrated with their African slaves. Our music, dance, and even a religion, Santería, grew out of these African roots that were alien to the rest of Latin America. So Puerto Rico and Cuba, it can be said, are a dove's two wings.

*******************************************************





De Palma is always prone to symmetry in his work, often bookending his films with similar visual or thematic concerns: the menstrual blood at the beginning of Carrie (1976) with the pig's blood in its climax; the sexually violent shower dream that opens Dressed to Kill (1980) and the one that ends it; the way an empty gun helps Carlito escape during a shootout at the start of Carlito's Way, and seals his lawyer Kleinfeld's (Sean Penn) fate as the movie wraps up. But with the release of Carlito's Way, De Palma provided not so much an apology, as some have said—for his negative depiction of a Latin gangster in Scarface—as much as he provided a doppelganger, a symmetrical counterpoint to the earlier film that gives it some unexpected depth.





De Palma helped to create the association by surrounding Pacino with characters, situations and backdrops that serve as mirrors between the two films. Tony and Carlito each have Anglo lovers—Elvira (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Gail (Penelope Ann Miller), respectively—that serve to illustrate the men's cultural disconnect with the American path to success. Elvira, no innocent herself, can't understand Tony's excesses, why he stagnates when he isn't reaching for more, more, more. Gail, can't understand why Carlito is locked on his path to failure by his loyalty to a code that repeatedly betrays him.





To lend some authenticity to the film, De Palma cast real life Hispanic entertainers in the roles of Pacino's associates in each film. Steven Bauer was already well known in the Miami exile community as Rocky Echevarría, star of a locally produced "Spanglish" sitcom called ¿Que Pasa USA? before he played Manny in Scarface. Argentinian star Jorge Porcel who played Saso in Carlito's Way was also well known in Miami as the star of the bawdy variety show, A la cama con Porcel. He also brought back three actors from Scarface for cameos in Carlito's Way—Ángel Salazar, Al Israel, and Michael P. Moran (casting Steven Bauer as Lalín instead of Viggo Mortensen would have made the parallels perfect)—cementing the bond between both films.





Both films have a gripping scene of explosive violence that sets the tone for each: in Scarface, it is the "chainsaw" drug buy where his associate Angel (Pepe Serna) is executed; and in Carlito's Way, it is the drug buy where he reluctantly accompanies his cousin Guajiro (John Ortíz).





Each film has one of De Palma's trademark sets and in this case, they are both clubs. Much of the action in Scarface takes place at the mirror-walled Club Babylon which comes to represent the splintered mind of the coke-addled Tony Montana. While in Carlito's Way, a lot of it occurs in El Paraiso, the chrome-walled cruise ship-themed club that symbolizes Carlito's ever present mindfulness of his dream escape to the Caribbean and rent cars.



The most obvious of the affinities between the two movies lie in the casting of their respective protagonists. Al Pacino plays both the Cuban gangster, Tony Montana, and Puerto Rican ex-con, Carlito Brigante. A decade long gulf separates Pacino's performances and the characters. Curiously, Pacino chews the scenery as Montana at a point in time when he hadn't yet become the butt of jokes for his over-the-top histrionics. As Montana, Pacino was not only paying tribute to the operatic interpretation of his predecessor, Paul Muni, in the original Scarface (1932), he was also capturing the flashy, loudmouthed characteristics of the stereotypical Miami Cuban: proud, independent to a fault, and full of braggadocio. Montana tries to create what he deems to be the perfect life, but his overblown sense of self causes him to impose his will and his mark on everything in it, as seen in his monogrammed mansion with the oversized painting of him overlooking a fountain that has a towering globe with the words "The World is Yours" surrounding it in neon.



Pacino's Carlito is Montana ten years later, humiliated by his stint in prison yet still respectful to the code of the streets. The white-suited Tony now gives way to the haunted black-suited Carlito. And it is curious again, that in 1993, when Pacino is constantly criticized for his exaggerated turns, he underplays the doomed Carlito. This man is quiet more often than not; taking in his surroundings with his eyes; guarded without being paranoid; wise enough to realize that he won't last long if he returns to the street life so instead he chooses to pursue the most humble of dreams, to rent cars outside of the country which he was born in, but has always felt excluded from. The character of Carlito is almost but not quite the elder statesman Tony could have grown into had he outlived his impetuous youth. This knowledge contributes to the elegiac tone of Carlito's Way, aided of course by the foreknowledge that Carlito will die at the film's conclusion.



Tony Montana's death is chaotic and magnificent. Carlito Brigante's is nondescript and neat. Each death is a fitting one considering the way each man lived his life. And in this way, too, Tony and Carlito are like a dove's two wings.

The Year 2002: Counting Down the Zeroes - Road to Perdition (Sam Mendes)

There was a time when Sam Mendes seemed like he was at the vanguard of young directors. His first film, American Beauty (1999), struck a very resonant fin de siècle chord at the time of its release. But with subsequent releases like Jarhead (2005), Revolutionary Road (2008), and as some early reviews indicate, Away We Go (2009), it has become apparent that while Mendes has a nose for talent, he doesn't seem to have much to say. This strangely superficial quality that he disguises fairly well in his selection of material to bring to the screen doesn't seem to affect his second film (perhaps because it is the only genre piece in his oeuvre), Road to Perdition. Maybe its because the film, based on a graphic novel, treads some familiar ground. The neo-noir follows some well-established gangster drama tropes, like "blood is thicker than water", "it's only business", and "honor amongst thieves." Fusing these cliches to a family psychodrama contrasting the relationship between button man Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks) and his eponymous son (Tyler Hoechlin), to the one between his surrogate father, mob boss John Rooney (Paul Newman, in his last onscreen film performance) and his envious son, Connor (Daniel Craig), may freshen up the proceedings somewhat. However, thanks to the film's powerful performances, a moving score by Thomas Newman (The Shawshank Redemption), and the gorgeous cinematography, the movie still holds up in a way that most of Mendes later work doesn't. Here, I've chosen to focus on the wonderful imagery by the late, great Conrad Hall (In Cold Blood, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). This was his last film, and won him the last of three Academy Awards for Best Cinematography. And for my money, this poetic film succeeds mostly on the basis of its beautiful and evocative images. This post was first published at Film for the Soul for its continuing series on the best movies of the 2000s, Counting Down the Zeroes, on 6/15/09.