ROAD TO PERDITION

title: ROAD TO PERDITION
year: 2002 rating: **

At the very end, the 12-year old son of a hit man, who had spent six weeks on the road with his father, on the run, narrates that he lived a lifetime on that particular journey. And while it feels a lifetime length-wise, hardly anything really happens to make the viewer agree that it was quite a ride. But that's not without some anticipation along the way. Like Hanks' Michael Sullivan, a former "enforcer" for Paul Newman's 1930's-era gangster chief John Rooney, having to rob a string of banks and to teach his son to be a getaway driver in the process. But what follows is a quick, much-too-easily-pulled-off montage. If this were made twenty-years earlier, those scores would have to provide thrills, action, suspense, but here it's superfluous filler. Only Jude Law as a menacing, photo-snapping creep on Hanks' trail is memorable... and we're simply supposed to hate him for wanting to kill the endearing mainstream star who always wins.  

Meanwhile, unlike its obvious cinematic muse, MILLER'S CROSSING, the mob boss and his supposed best friend/hit man never seem all that close to begin with, unlike Albert Finney and Gabriel Byrne, who are like inseparable father and son. One scene where Newman and Hanks play the same song on the same piano may as well have been danced on a giant floorboard-keyboard and their friendship would have felt more, well... BIG or something... so that the inevitable betrayal (involving Newman's trigger-happy son, a pre-Bond Daniel Craig) would actually mean something when things turn sour. But all there is is the praised dark-room GODFATHER style cinematography, but set in the rain-soaked East Coast Great Depression: For that, just watch MILLER'S CROSSING and it's all there... With something actually inside above and beyond this coming-of-age, violent revenge picture that isn't innocent/moving enough or intense/thrilling enough to successfully blend both. 

DRAGNET

year: 1987
cast: Dan Aykroyd, Tom Hanks
rating: ***

Plot involves a group called P.A.G.A.N. who worship the devil and burn buildings and then leave their business cards behind after each scorching. Dan Aykroyd not only gets to ramble in his monotone to his partner Tom Hank's chagrin, but also, like the famous TV series, provides the straight-forward narration throughout. It's a little bit painful for a while - Aykroyd playing the character as someone as annoying as the original Friday seemed to baby boomers, at least until the plot comes together, and Friday gets a love interest (Alexandra Paul), then you actually feel something for the characters. Hanks lands a couple funnier lines, the bad guys become revealed, and the car chases aren't too bad. In no way is this an endorsement to rent or buy this flick, but if you accidently happen on it on cable, it won't kill you like other Aykroyd ventures such as "Loose Cannons", "My Stepmother is an Alien" and the worst film ever made, "Nothing But Trouble".

YOU'VE GOT MAIL

title: YOU'VE GOT MAIL

year: 1999

cast: Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Steve Zahn, Jean Stapleton, Dabney Coleman, John Randolph, Greg Kinnear, Parker Posey

rating: ***

Okay guys, if you really wanna pick up on a beautiful chick, one that looks like, say, Meg Ryan, trick her into thinking you're someone you're not on the computer via email, manipulate her mind and have her fall in love with the image of you as a writer sharing your innermost thoughts and daily routines after you, as your real self, shut down her family business and all her dreams along with it. Well, it worked for Tom Hanks, so why not? Pretty good chick flick overall, a remake of "The Shop Around the Corner" about two people who email each other without getting too personal; one (Hanks) owns a new big bookstore that sells discount books, the other (Ryan) owns a small old bookstore across the street that sells specialty books that cost a ton (still not sure if they're used or not); and as the Westerns say "There's not enough room for the both of us." The best moments are before Tom knows Meg's Meg as they're emailing back and forth, completely unaware of each other's identity and loathing one another in their business "non-net" lives. During the scam in which Tom manipulates Meg after finding out she's his web girl, things get too plot-heavy and complicated, and then at the end, after he comes clean, Meg falls in love much too easily. Hanks' performance is a bit constrained: he seems OVER the whole comedy thing at this point, which is kind of a bummer. I dug him in the eighties when he was lean and goofy, and not considered beyond such trivialities.

IN & OUT

title: IN & OUT

year: 1997

cast: Kevin Kline, Tom Selleck, Matt Dillon, Joan Cusack, William Duell

director: Frank Oz

rating: **

Matt Dillon's character, a straight actor playing a gay man in a war film, wins an Oscar and outs his teacher, Kevin Kline, who isn't aware he's gay; in fact he's about to get married to Joan Cusack. The first half is funny as Kline tries his best to prove against Dillon's theory; but the second half, after Kline comes out publicly, is pure Hollywood propaganda as it tries way too hard to dispose of small town prejudice: battling "homophobia" at every turn and and forgetting what it is... a light comedy.