First of all, this movie is just brilliant on so many levels. It is masterfully directed and, like every masterpiece (IMHO) it is intrinsically melded to the soundtrack. Take away any one piece and the movie would have suffered a lesser fate. But for me, it was the music for which I cannot get enough. In the long shot scenes where the camera pulls back for the drive to Perdition, the music allows me to float my mind and hear my own childhood, which is repleat with unanswered and haunting questions. The music is "me" in some existential form, so much so, that I call almost hear the Irish in me answering it's call to follow it to it's end. Thomas Newman is a master at using poignant musical themes that capture the mystery of Perdition and speak to the collective unresolved and the unresolvable in all of us with sometimes painfully exquisite use of orchestral arrangements. Even during the movies' quiet and suspensful moments, the music floats in the background like a silent witness. The music informs us of important emotions and reactions to the violence of this Irish Chicagoan community during the Prohibion era. If a character is spiralling out of control, the music propels the viewer into some sort of vertigo of the character's insanity. If a character is a captive of their own ignorance or naivety of youth, then the music imparts those feelings and fuses the viewer to the character. In a similar way that the 3rd person perspective of "To Kill A Mockingbird" is carried along by the use of haunting piano themes, "Road To Perdition" is likewise carried aloft by this music. This film and it's music has achieved something that lesser efforts have not, and that it has entertained me and it has informed me about myself. Don't let this one go by.
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