My favourite scene in Road to Perdition

I’ve just watched the 2002 film, Road to Perdition, and this was far and away my favourite scene. There are no prizes for guessing why. I knew others would have loved it before me and because of that I would find it on YouTube so that I could bring it to you here.

So here you go: a crucial lesson in the importance of the meaning of words and their accurate use, from none other than Paul Newman in his last role, as an Irish-American crime boss in the Prohibition era in Detroit, to his son as played by Daniel Craig.

There are a couple of anachronisms running throughout the film, which I found really distracting. For much of the action, hitman Michael Sullivan, as played by Tom Hanks, is on the road with his 12-year-old son, or getting in and out of their car. And the son always, but always, gets straight in the back and sits there. In 1931, he would never have sat in the back, but in front alongside his father – just as we were still doing, 40 and 50 years later.

Of course, none of this anachronistic post-it-tfal-huwa-wara stops Hanks from teaching his son to drive and then having him drive the getaway car as they rob banks.

The other anachronism is that nobody smokes, except the character played by Craig (the immoral villain among moral villains, to put it one way). He lights up once, when in extremis of sorts after murdering his associate’s wife and her small son, and get this…he goes outside to do it. But back then, all the men would have been smoking, all the time, inside the house and out, and certainly in bars and diners.