Road To Perdition

Road To Perdition

 Directed by Sam Mendes

Screenplay by David Self

Based on Road to Perdition by Max Allan Collins Richard Piers Rayner

Produced by Richard D. Zanuck ,Dean Zanuck ,Sam Mendes

Starring Tom Hanks ,Paul Newman ,Jude Law ,Jennifer Jason Leigh ,Stanley Tucci ,Daniel Craig ,Cinematography ,Conrad L. Hall

Edited by Jill Bilcock

Music by Thomas Newman

Production company The Zanuck Company

Distributed by DreamWorks Pictures (United States) ,20th Century Fox (International)

Release date July 12, 2002

Running time 117 minutes

Country United States

Language English

Budget $80 million

Box office $183.4 million

STORY LINE

The film begins and ends in 1931 during the Great Depression with a voiceover from Michael Sullivan, Jr., speaking about his father. Michael Sullivan, Sr. was orphaned and then raised by Irish mob boss John Rooney in Rock Island, Illinois, and he is now his most fearsome enforcer, unknown to his own children. Rooney has come to love Sullivan more than his own biological son, the rash and unpredictable Connor.

 Speaking at his brother's wake, Rooney's associate Finn McGovern insinuates that Rooney is responsible for his brother's death. Rooney sends Connor and Sullivan to talk with McGovern, while 12-year-old Michael watches through a hole in the wall, after hiding in the back of the family car. McGovern steadfastly denies that his brother stole anything from the mob before implying Connor was responsible, and Connor shoots him on the spot before Sullivan shoots the other witnesses. Michael's shocked reaction gives him away and the boy is sworn to secrecy.

 The next day, Rooney visits the house to intimidate the boy, and Michael soon begins acting out. At a meeting with his mob associates, Rooney pointedly humiliates Connor after he halfheartedly apologizes for McGovern's murder. Then he sends Sullivan to collect a debt from a speakeasy owner Tony Calvino.

 Connor, jealous and afraid, sends a letter with Sullivan for Calvino. Calvino reads it then reaches for his revolver, but Sullivan kills both Calvino and his bodyguard. The letter reads "Kill Sullivan and all debts are paid," and he rushes home. Connor has been there before him, killing Sullivan's wife, Annie, and their younger son, Peter, just as Michael arrives home late from school after detention. He hears the shots, and stays hidden as he sees Connor leave.

 Sullivan and Michael flee Rock Island and head to Chicago to meet Frank Nitti. He offers to work for the Chicago Outfit in exchange for permission to kill Connor, but Nitti rejects the offer. Rooney, listening next door with Connor, reluctantly allows Nitti to dispatch freelance killer Harlen Maguire, who doubles as a crime scene photographer, to kill Sullivan, but forbids them to kill his son Michael, despite the risks down the road. Maguire tracks Sullivan to a roadside diner, where they seem to converse casually while Michael hides in the car, but Sullivan's instincts send him escaping through the bathroom, before he punctures Maguire's car tire and drives off with Maguire shooting at him.

 Aware of the hit man now, Sullivan begins robbing banks that hold the Outfit's money, hoping to trade it for Connor, teaching Michael to drive so he can get them away. Sullivan is impeded when the mob withdraws its money, so he visits Rooney's accountant Alexander Rance. Rance stalls Sullivan until Maguire enters with a shotgun, killing Rance while Sullivan escapes with Rooney's ledgers.

 Michael drives them to a farm because Sullivan was wounded, where a childless elderly couple helps him recover. Sullivan's bond with his son grows deeper as he recovers and Michael comes to realize his father loves him.

 The ledgers reveal that Connor has been embezzling from his father for years, using the names of dead men including McGovern. Believing Rooney will call off the hit if he knows the truth, Sullivan gifts the couple a chunk of the stolen cash and heads back to Chicago.

 Sullivan confronts Rooney at Mass, learning Rooney already knows about Connor and expects he will be killed – if not by Sullivan, then by Nitti's men once Rooney is dead. He still refuses to give up his son and urges Sullivan to flee with Michael and ensure he becomes a better man than either of them.

 Later one night, cloaked by darkness and rain, Sullivan ambushes and kills Rooney's bodyguards with a Thompson submachine gun before walking up to Rooney, who looks him in the eye and says, "I'm glad it's you," as Sullivan shoots him at point-blank range. Having no further reasons to protect Connor now that Rooney is dead, Nitti reveals Connor's location after Sullivan promises the feud ends with his death. Sullivan goes to the hotel where Connor is hiding and kills him in the bathtub.

 Sullivan takes his son to his Aunt Sarah's beach house in Perdition, on the shore of Lake Michigan, where he is ambushed and shot by Maguire inside the house as Michael stands on the beach. As Maguire photographs the dying Sullivan, Michael appears and points a gun at Maguire but cannot bring himself to pull the trigger. As Maguire beckons to Michael to give him the gun, Sullivan fatally shoots Maguire. Sullivan tells his son he knew he couldn't do it before dying in his arms.

 Michael says his father's fear was that he would follow the same road, and that he has not held a gun since his father died. Michael drives the car back to the farm, saying he grew up there, and now when he is asked if his father was a good man, he just tells them, "He was my father."

REVIEW

Sam Mendes’ follow up to his Oscar winning film American Beauty did not disappoint. This film excels at exploring new ideas, particularly stuff revolving around the plot and true backgrounds of the characters involved, and man you can’t have a better cast to do that than what you’ve got here, and the best part about all this is, the story can never lose touch of its heart, even though the editing is a little bit questionable and a 16th of the time it does feel a bit rushed due to its small 100 minute runtime, unlike the rest of Mendes’ work with Skyfall being at least two and a half hours long. Nonetheless, the movie is a masterpiece of the crime genre, probably the best mob crime film since Goodfellas, though Sam Mendes is no Martin Scorsese  when it comes to filmmaking. But the one thing that viewers can feel really treated to is the cinematography. It has one of, if not the most amazing and gorgeous uses of silhouettes and rainfall ever put to film, and for those who haven’t seen the movie I won’t spoil the good stuff here, the only other thing I’ll say hear is that Conrad L Hall’s posthumous Oscar for his stunning cinematography was extremely well deserved.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_to_Perdition