Road to Perdition

Crime, Drama

Tom Hanks	Michael O'Sullivan
Paul Newman	John Rooney
Jude Law	Maguire
Jennifer Jason Leigh	Annie Sullivan
Stanley Tucci	Frank Nitti
Daniel Craig	Connor Rooney
Tyler Hoechlin	Michael Sullivan Jr.
Liam Aiken	Peter Sullivan
Dylan Baker	Alexander Rance
Ciaran Hinds	Finn McGovern
Rob Maxey	Drugstore Owner
Ciarán Hinds	Finn McGovern
Craig Spidle	Rooney's Henchman

Director	Sam Mendes
Producer	Joan Bradshaw; Tara B. Cook
Writer	David Self; Max Allan Collins; Richard Piers Rayner

The acclaimed graphic novel from crime writer Max Allan Collins becomes this big budget Dreamworks drama from director Sam Mendes and screenwriter David Self . Tom Hanks stars as Michael Sullivan, a morally conflicted Depression-era hit man committing murder in the name of his employer, John Rooney ( Paul Newman ). A kindly, aging Irish crime boss who raised Sullivan as his surrogate son, Rooney is affiliated with Al Capone in Chicago and thus wields great power in the "Tri-Cities" of Moline, IL; Rock Island, IL; and Davenport, IO. Curious about his father's mysterious profession, Sullivan's son, Michael Jr. ( Tyler Hoechlin ), stows away in his father's automobile one night and witnesses the execution of a man at the hands of Sullivan and Rooney's biological son, Connor ( Daniel Craig ). Although Michael keeps his promise to remain silent about what he's seen, the paranoid and unstable Connor tries to wipe out the entire Sullivan clan anyway, succeeding only in killing Sullivan's wife, Annie ( Jennifer Jason Leigh ), and youngest son, Peter ( Liam Aiken ). Enraged at this and another surprise betrayal by the Rooneys, Sullivan embarks on a path of bloody retribution, Michael in tow. Although he intends to leave his boy with relatives in the rural town of Perdition once the coast is clear, he ends up exposing Michael to the goriest aspects of his talents, slaughtering former associates as he dodges contract assassin Maguire ( Jude Law ) and cripples the cash flow of the Rooney and Capone organizations through a series of bank robberies, attempting to force either mob family to offer up the sequestered Connor as a sacrifice. Inspired by the popular Japanese comic book series Lone Wolf and Cub and based loosely on an episode from the life and career of notorious real-life crime figures John and Connor Looney, Road to Perdition co-stars Stanley Tucci as legendary Chicago mobster Frank Nitti. -- Karl Williams