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Road to Perdition is a 2002 motion picture directed by Sam Mendes and starring Tom Hanks, Tyler Hoechlin, Paul Newman and Jude Law. The screenplay is based on a graphic novel of the same title by Max Allan Collins (who also wrote the novelization of the film with the same title).
The film's central theme is that of fathers and sons.
Michael Sullivan Sr. (Hanks) is a trusted aide to John Rooney (Newman), an organized crime boss of Rock Island, Illinois. When Michael Sullivan Jr. (Hoechlin) witnesses his father and and John Rooney's son, Connor, kill a man who refuses to pay the mob, Connor decides to snuff the Sullivan family out as a precaution, even though Michael, Sr. regards John Rooney as a surrogate father.
However, the father survives the attempt to assassinate him, and Junior was not home when a hit man barges into the Sullivan family's home and pumps lead into Annie Sullivan and young Peter Sullivan.
When it becomes clear that the Al Capone organization will not countenance Sullivan's taking revenge on the Rooneys, he develops an elaborate scheme to protect his son and to blackmail the mob into giving up Connor. He must do this while evading Maguire (Law), a voyeuristic hit man hired by the Capone organization to complete the eradication of the Sullivans.
In the graphic novel, the principal characters' surnames are O'Sullivan and Looney, respectively.
