The truth of characters, a only personalities... Sam Mendes is still a very valuable director for me, at least for his first feature film “American Beauty”, which at one time led me to indescribable delight. Although he rarely makes films, in the films that I watched, namely, “Road of Change”, he raises a very interesting topic, although very common.
Quite the average Mike Sullivan (Tom Hanks) lives the life of a normal American 30-ies of the XX century. He is a good father, a strong family man, a responsible worker; but one thing haunts his eldest son Michael (Tyler Hechlin) - where exactly does his father go in his car every morning and what kind of people surround him - in perfect suits, but with a strange cunning in his eyes? One day, Michael climbs into the back seat of his father’s car and witnesses his work. The problem is that Mike Sullivan is a gangster. A gangster carrying out delicate errands is an assignment where there is no place for unnecessary witnesses.
"American Beauty" is a masterpiece in its genre of moral stories. The personal theme in it is touched very seriously, as well as in another film by Mendes “Road of Change”. But the problem is that those films are logical and combined with such a theme, but in gangster films, the personal theme somehow looks irrelevant. After all, there is more built on the family, on the relationships within it, such as in “The Godfather”. Here was the truth of the characters, and here we observe only the truth of the personality, which in this subject is unsuccessful. Here is the very first scene performed well, there is just the truth of the characters, at the funeral of one of the family members. Probably the best scene in the movie. Especially revealing is the scene of the characters Hanks and Newman playing the piano. Very harmonious and at the same time typical, but it looks attractive in its own way. And that's it. Mandez switched to personalities, and everything went upside down.
But what saves this film is that it is made in a typically American manner. Still, such a spectacular part here at a fairly high level, and sometimes beautiful shootouts act here in place of spiritual vicissitudes. But, after all, this is only the outer shell, and all that is needed is either not there or in a big way. I am not saying that the film should be completely empty in the soul, just, I repeat in this time period it should not be on the first role.
If the roles, then I will immediately say that I did not like Tom Hanks in this film. But the image of the gangster is clearly not his, both externally and internally. For me, he will always be Forrest Gump, but not Mike Sullivan. Not realistic, not gangster-like. That's not it. Here's Paul Newman in the role of the biggest boss, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. A well-deserved Oscar nomination for a supporting male role. Jude Law also has a good role, although short, but still peculiar. Also in the role of father’s son lit up in the film future agent 007 Daniel Craig. So my claims are mostly to Tom Hanks. And those ridiculous mustaches. Well, not his role at all. So people in charge of casting clearly minus this film.
Those who do not interfere in all these personal nonsense, the film may even like, especially fans of gangster films. But personally, he didn’t make a small fraction of the impression I got when watching American Beauty. There is clearly a deep personal theme, and the final phrase is obvious confirmation of this, but this theme does not fit into the rhythm of the film.
Original