Wow, I had no idea what I was getting into. I guess I should have read up on this before going to see it. I figured it was a drama, but I didn’t know it was a gangster flick, and I didn’t know it was an action movie. In some ways that was a good thing, because I’m not crazy about Mob films (I find the American fascination with the Mob incomprehesible). But I did like this movie; very much, in fact. It’s the best film I’ve seen this year. The plot is about a 1930s family headed by Tom Hanks. Tom works as an enforcer for a mobster. That’s a role I didn’t quite buy for Tom. (The scene at the end, with him and the Tommy gun, didn’t work for me: I wanted to laugh at Tom pretending to be tough.) When his son accidently witnesses a hit, the entire family is to be terminated, and Tom only just escapes with his son and they’re on the run the rest of the film. It’s pretty exciting, with good characterizations and drama, and I really liked the story. The young son is excellent, one of the best performances of the year. He really captures the torment of a young child being forced to grow up overnight. The film touches on the question of morality, making us wonder if Tom Hanks is a good guy or a bad guy, but doesn’t really explore that as much as it could. It concludes with the boy saying, “He was my father,” something meant to be profound which comes across as avoiding the question, though it does remind us that fathers are only human. Good stuff overall. I loved the plot, the characters, and the way it was directed. The action sequences were very good, very gritty and realistic, though a portion of the Jude Law bad guy character came across as stereotypically evil. The performance of Paul Newman as the mobster was superb. Well worth your time, though I’m not completely convinced this is a classic we’ll watch in 50 years.
