Boys will be men
Think of a conflict between father and son, and chances are good you'll find it buried somewhere within Road to Perdition, director Sam Mendes's first film since the hugely successful, if flawed, American Beauty. Based on a graphic novel (a high-end comic book) written by Max Allan Collins and illustrated by Richard Piers Rayner, Road to Perdition is a great-looking gangster movie set in 1931 Chicago, when the Capone gang flourished and lesser mobsters came to the big city to pay homage or seek favor.
One of these out-of-town kingpins is John Rooney (Paul Newman), an Irishman who rules his midwestern kingdom with an iron fist and an itchy trigger finger. His crown princes are his son, Connor, a chortling enforcer from the Richard Widmark school of psychotic gangsters, and Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks), a soft-spoken professional who is, for all intents and purposes, Rooney's adopted son whom the malignant monarch loves and respects more than his own blood.
Set against this Shakespearean tale of a cruel and powerful warlord and his potential heirs is the very different relationship between Michael and his two sons. They adore their mysterious father. Thirteen-year-old Michael Jr. is reaching that point in life where he wants to know what his dad does for a living. He sneaks into the back of Michael's car one night, where he witnesses Connor and his father commit murder.
