Road to Perdition Question

[SHAFTR]

First off, I really enjoy this film, top 5 on my lists of best movies of the year...but there is something that bothers me...

The kid telling the story does voice over...and he does the voice over in a nostalgic way with lines like "in the summer of 1939" "people think I grew up on a farm" etc...so it seems like the story is a flashback...one that goes back quite a few years, but his voice is the same pre-pubescent voice that the kid actor has in the movie....so is it a flashback?

I don't get it.

[modage]

i loved it as well, top 3 for last year.  umm thats a good point.  i guess thats just a kind of little mistake, where they didnt want to hire an adult for the role, for fear of the audience not knowing who was talking.  or maybe its just supposed to be his inner monologue, which still sounds like a kid?

[SHAFTR]

I had never noticed it until I came home and my roommate was watching it and the last scene was playing...and I thought about that.

[Duck Sauce]

Dont get me wrong, I liked RTP and thought it was great but something about it was a little too bland... The tone was very subdued and thats what I think kept if from being a classic to me

[dufresne]

he could have wrote the story down in a diary or journal or something a couple years afterwards, and still had the same "voice"...

the movie is almost re-reading his memoirs...

i dunno.  i'm tired.

[Keener]

Dont get me wrong, I liked RTP and thought it was great but something about it was a little too bland... The tone was very subdued and thats what I think kept if from being a classic to me

I completely agree with what you said. I was expecting something more like Miller's Crossing which is one of my favorites. It's not a bad movie by any stretch but I don't feel the urge to go buy a copy at the moment.

[Raikus]

I think the reason the flashback VO is in there is due to the revisions to the screenplay. Originally it was to follow the graphic novel more and have the son recounting the adventures with his father as an old priest. At the end you would see him telling this story in the confines of the Church. However they cut most of the spiritual (read: dynamic) meanings from the script and left it two dimensional. I think they still left he structure of the flashback because they were too lazy.

I loved RtP as well, but it could have been even better if the writers had stuck more to the graphic novel.

[Gold Trumpet]

Finally a thread talking about this movie so I can give an opinion. Didn't like it. The movie started out fine and even continued one when Hanks went to Chicago to talk to Tucci's character. The mistake though was he left and decided to try to hurt Al Capone by robbing all the banks that had his money. Dramatically, that is not very interesting and feels like it is stretching the story too much. It would have been much more interesting if the story sticked to a more personal three way fight of sorts between Tucci who was protecting Newman's kid for reasons he didn't want to and respected Hanks and to see how Newman would personally deal with Hanks. It could have been made unpredictable and interesting again to what would happen next but the story it takes just slides everything into casual predictability that makes it style feel like the main influence here. Newman's death is an example. Jude Law, as much as I like him, is playing a non character here. He has no importance but to look a little strange as a hitman and try to kill Hanks but still as much importance any nicely dress hood you see everywhere. If the film went my way, his character would have been gone.

~rougerum

[Alethia]

i had gotten my hopes up too much for this movie - dont get me wrong, i liked it, but i was expecting it to be so much more than what it actually turned out being.  it felt to me like its sole purpose in being made was to win some more oscars.

[SHAFTR]

I've read the Graphic Novel and I enjoy both the film and novel.  They are both different and stand alone well.  If I recall correctly...the Jude Law character isn't in the novel and the ending is different.

[Pwaybloe]

I've read the Graphic Novel and I enjoy both the film and novel.

Does anyone else laugh at the idea of calling a comic book a "Graphic Novel?"  It sounds like a code word for comic book dorks to use while talking in public:

"Hey man, did you check out that new Superman com.. er, I mean, graphic novel?  It was soooooo tits."

[Raikus]

Not really. Usually the term "graphic novel" is reserved for more adult oriented material.

[modage]

well a graphic novel is usually a One-Shot deal.  like, a comic book is usually a series that stretches on for many issues and are about 30 pages each.  a mini-series is that same comic book but only lasts for the completion of one storyline, usually around a couple issues.  and finally, a Graphic Novel is, just like the term, "novel", ONE STORY in ONE BOOK, only instead of being just words on a page, also illustrations, hence "graphic".

right, and as raikus said, usually, (but not always), more adult oriented material.

[SHAFTR]

well a graphic novel is usually a One-Shot deal.  like, a comic book is usually a series that stretches on for many issues and are about 30 pages each.  a mini-series is that same comic book but only lasts for the completion of one storyline, usually around a couple issues.  and finally, a Graphic Novel is, just like the term, "novel", ONE STORY in ONE BOOK, only instead of being just words on a page, also illustrations, hence "graphic".

right, and as raikus said, usually, (but not always), more adult oriented material.

What about when an arc is compiled into a book and sold?