The comic book genre is inevitably defined by costumed crimefighters, superpowered heroes, and villains with designs on world domination, so much so that it’s easy to forget that Academy Award-winning crime thriller Road to Perdition was adapted from a graphic novel.
David Self brought his own source material to the big screen by penning the screenplay for the atmospheric and nail-biting father/son story that also plays as an old-fashioned gangster flick shot with visual polish and no shortage of panache by Sam Mendes, who himself was hot off the back of winning a Best Director Oscar for his debut feature American Beauty.
All told, Road to Perdition landed five nominations at the biggest ceremony in Hollywood and landed the trophy for Best Cinematography, won widespread acclaim from critics and audiences, while going on to earn a stellar $183 million at the box office. Those are facts and figures you’d expect from prestige dramas and not comic book blockbusters, but the film deftly straddles the divide in classic fashion.
20 years on, and streaming subscribers remain enraptured by Tom Hanks and his son breaking free from the shackles of the former’s lifetime of servitude to the legendary Paul Newman’s mob boss, with Road to Perdition having filled the Rakuten charts full of lead in the early part of this week, per FlixPatrol.
Mendes’ unheralded chamber piece and David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence are arguably two of the best comic book movies that nobody talks about anywhere near often enough when it comes to discussing the best the genre has to offer, but at least they remain capable of drawing in a crowd on-demand.
Published: Dec 6, 2022 12:04 pm