Road to success for Mendes

In a summer of brainless popcorn flicks, Road to Perdition is something of a miracle. For his first film since the Oscar-winning American Beauty, Sam Mendes has woven a hypnotic visual tapestry of the Irish mob in Depression-era Chicago that is to gangster movies what a Chanel label is to the rag business.

A rare and exemplary work of artistry and humanity, it makes you think while it unfolds like the haunting pages of a novel you never want to end. It's a thoughtful and responsible film, at a time when we need one badly.

Playing against type, Tom Hanks and Paul Newman are two fathers with different sensibilities about faith, family loyalty and fate. In a clinical departure from his usual roles as brave, nice-guy, Frank Capra heroes, Hanks is Michael Sullivan, a hitman for a gang of Irish boot-leggers working for Al Capone.

By day he's a hard-working family man who brings home the bacon to a loving wife (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and two sons who know nothing of their father's profession. By night, he's a fearless and unflinching killing machine. His oldest boy, Michael Jr (Tyler Hoechlin, making a fine debut) is a 12-year-old who goes to Mass, reads Lone Ranger comics under the blankets, and fears his Dad doesn't love him as much as his younger brother.

In another part of town, Paul Newman plays John Rooney, the rich, benevolent patriarch of the mob who is Michael's boss and surrogate father. Rooney loves Michael like his own son, but even with all of his power and generosity, he has a problem - a real son named Connor (brilliantly played by Daniel Craig) who is a cocky screw-up, but insecure and jealous of his father's obvious affection for Michael

Things come to a boil on a wintry night in 1931 when Michael Jr accidentally witnesses his dad's participation in a mob killing and the trigger-happy Connor is dispatched to the Sullivan house to silence the whole family.

In the bloody chaos that follows, he wipes out Sullivan's wife and youngest son, but misses his main targets. Forced to choose between their careers in crime and their sons, Rooney puts out a contract on Michael, and Michael flees with his only surviving child on the road to Perdition, a town where a compassionate aunt offers a safe haven.

Perdition has a double meaning here - as a geographical destination and as what the dictionary defines as "eternal damnation". When this movie opens in Britain in September, you will know why.

In a series of scenes remarkable for their unpredictability, the six-week road trip to Perdition is paved with violent consequences as father and son become partners in order to survive, robbing banks and learning to bond in ways that leaven the film and change their lives forever.

A film with this much subtlety, nuance and menace must depend on razor-sharp performances, and the impeccable cast is surprising and memorable.