Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Road to Perdition [SPOILERS]

A precursor place-holder for the "Best Shot"

It's hard to believe that it was already ten years ago last weekend when Road to Perdition finally opened.  (The film serves as this week's edition to Nathaniel's TFE Hit Me With Your Best Shot series.)  Audiences had been waiting over two years to see what exciting new director Sam Mendes was going to serve up as his Oscar-baity sophomore effort to his hit suburban epic American Beauty.  Tom Hanks played somewhat against type as a kindler, gentler mafia enforcer Michael Sullivan, Sr, who loses just about everything and must fight to keep what he has left.  Out of fear of the sins of the father being visited upon his son Michael, Jr, he hopes he can guide him towards the straight and narrow while they're both on the lam.  Part of his plight involves contending with hitman/photographer Harlen Maguire (Jude Law in a subtly hardened performance).  Like the kidnappers in Fargo or Bruno in Strangers on a Train who is a big fan of bartering, an insidious plan already put into motion sometimes takes on a life of its own and Maguire was far from being done.  As this is a crime saga, after he finished picking shards of glass out of his face, his return was inevitable.  A lesser film would have had a long, drawn-out climax, but Mendes opts for something more simplified, honest, and poetic.  Sullivan, Sr, enters Aunt Sara's beach house, but she is nowhere to be found.  The film cheats a little.  As you watch Hanks approach the window in a closeup, he appears to be the only one in the home.  However, if you look really hard, you can almost make out a shadowy figure in the corner--but not quite.  Thomas Newman's iconic score ebbs and the ocean waves flow as Michael, Sr takes in the sight of his son in seeming safety during his final moment of peace, unbeknownst to him.    

The "Best Shot" of Road to Perdition

Conrad Hall may have won his third Oscar for his final film on this carefully composed moment alone that is truly the best shot of the movie amongst a series of striking imagery.  The window which reflects the ocean and beach magnificently, as well as his son frolicking on the sand, also serves as a barrier to Michael, Sr and the quaint, fleeting domesticity.  In a startling reveal, the past (in the form of Maguire) has come back to haunt Michael's present now splattered all over the partition which reflects the future that he is no longer going to be part of.  Quite eloquent, really.

But, only half the job is finished ...

Previous HMWYBS:
Pink Narcissus
Road to Perdition
Picnic
The Story of Adele H.

Possessed

Edward Scissorhands

The Exorcist

Pariah
Raise the Red Lantern

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

The Circus