"Road to Perdition," a period gangster film that achieves the grandeur of a classic Hollywood western, is the second feature film directed by Sam Mendes, the British theatrical maestro who landed at the top of Hollywood's A-list with his cinematic debut, "American Beauty." The new movie re-teams him with Conrad L. Hall, the brilliant cinematographer responsible for that film's surreal classicist shimmer. With "Road to Perdition" they have created a truly majestic visual tone poem, one that is so much more stylized than its forerunner that it inspires a continuing and deeply satisfying awareness of the best movies as monumental "picture shows."

"Road to Perdition" ponders some of the same questions as "The Sopranos," a comparably great work of popular art, whose protagonist is also a gangster and a devoted family man.