Road to Perdition has a double meaning that literally explains the movie and also delves deeper into the historical crime drama’s real themes. Road to Perdition has a lot going for it. The dramatically underrated crime movie directed by Sam Mendes is a violent, grim, and ultimately moving tale of revenge, redemption, and forgiveness. With an 82% on Rotten Tomatoes and $181 million at the box office (via BoxOfficeMojo), Road to Perdition offers a moving and thoughtful story set in 1931 Illinois during the Great Depression when gangs ran roughshod.
Based on the DC comic book series of the same name by Max Allan Collins, Road to Perdition follows a mob enforcer named Michael Sullivan Sr., played by Tom Hanks, who sets out with his young son, played by Tyler Hoechlin, to take revenge on the Irish mob Outfit responsible for killing the rest of their family. Filled with an outstanding cast including Hanks, Daniel Craig, Jude Law, Stanley Tucci, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Paul Newman in one of his last great roles, Road to Perdition keeps offering up ideas nearly a quarter-century after its release.
The Road To Perdition Means The Road To Hell
Perdition Can Also Mean Damnation Or Destruction
Road to Perdition is up there among the best movie тιтles, with appropriate credit given to Collins for thinking it up. There’s something menacing, mysterious, and adventurous about a тιтle like that. The тιтle has a double meaning in the film. Literally, Perdition is a town in the movie. It’s sat on Lake Michigan in Illinois. A fictional location, it’s where Sullivan Jr.’s aunt’s house is, and it’s where Sullivan Sr. takes his son at the end of the film. The events of the film have led the Sullivans to Perdition, and it’s been a long and winding road to get there.
Thematically, Road to Perdition means something else. Perdition, according to Merriam-Webster, means eternal damnation or hell. It can also mean utter destruction. It’s a bad place, is what it is, and it’s where Sullivan Sr. is leading his son to on their quest for revenge. The Sullivans are on a road of destruction, one that could very well lead to damnation and hell. The focus on the Irish Outfit in Road to Perdition is no coincidence, as hell and damnation figure prominently in Roman Catholicism, the religion closely ᴀssociated with Ireland and Irish-Americans.
Michael Sullivan Hopes To Prevent His Son From Following Him Down The Road To Perdition
The Road To Perdition Ends Up Destroying Those Who Walk It
Road to Perdition is certainly a road movie. The Sullivans make their way from Rock Island to Perdition, making sure to extract their revenge against Connor Rooney (Craig) and his father John’s (Newman) Outfit along the way. More importantly, the road Sullivan Sr. leads his son down is one to hell. Sullivan Sr.’s family never knew that he was a violent enforcer for the mob. Sullivan Sr. is not a good man, and he killed plenty of people in his day, plenty of families, as it were. He only gets out when the violence comes to his own home.
As the film goes on, Sullivan Sr. brings his son deeper into the business, bringing him further down the road to perdition
This is a man who agreed to walk down the road to perdition in order to provide for his family, but he could have found a different way. Despite being in the business to look after his family, it’s his business that eventually sees them killed. Such is the path of destruction. As the film goes on, Sullivan Sr. brings his son deeper into the business, bringing him further down the road to perdition. That’s how vengeful Sullivan Sr. has become. Both men are walking the road to perdition. There’s a way out, however.
John Rooney explains it to Sullivan Sr., a bit ironically considering John brought Sullivan Sr. down the road to perdition many years ago. It’s John who tells Sullivan Sr. to give up on his revenge and flee with his son. He tells the grieving father that he has the chance to raise Sullivan Jr. to be a better man than either of them, the chance to step off the road to perdition. Sullivan Sr. does not give up his fight, however, and though he wins, he ends up in Perdition, and it’s there he is killed.
Max Allan Collins wrote two prose sequels тιтled Road to Purgatory and Road to Paradise, further highlighting the religious themes and Catholic imagery of the story.
His last act is one of his noblest. Instead of allowing his son to continue down the road to perdition and kill Sullivan Sr.’s ᴀssᴀssin, Harlen Maguire (Law), Sullivan Sr. shoots Harlen himself, forcibly pushing his son off the road to hell. As a reward for his selflessness, Sullivan Sr. learns that his son was never going to be able to pull the trigger; he didn’t have it in him. Sullivan Sr. dies smiling, relieved to know his son willingly stepped off the road.
Road To Perdition Takes Inspiration From Great Depression Era Gangsters
John Rooney Is Loosely Inspired By John Looney
While Road to Perdition is not based on any one story, it uses real figures as inspiration and even includes some historical gangsters in the story. John Rooney is based on John Looney of Rock Island, Illinois (via NBCNews). Looney was a major player in the mob, controlling illegal gambling, prosтιтution, bootlegging, and more along the Mississippi River. Looney got into a civil war with his lieutenant, Dan Drost, and in 1922, Looney and his son, Connor, were attacked in an ambush by Drost and others. Connor ended up dying while Looney lived, but went to prison soon after.
Stanley Tucci plays Frank Nitti in Road to Perdition, who was a notorious real-life Italian-American crime figure who took over Al Capone’s Chicago Outfit after Capone went to prison. Capone is played by an uncredited Anthony LaPaglia. Collins changed quite a bit from that real-life story, but Road to Perdition depicts an authentic representation of the era, with all the backstabbing, violence, and futility that comes with gang warfare.
What The Creative Team Has Said About Road To Perdition
Sam Mendes Was Attracted To The Story’s Themes
Tom Hanks has long considered Road to Perdition one of his more underappreciated movies, saying,
“For one reason or another, no one references Road to Perdition, and that was an incredibly important movie for me to go through.”
It’s a much different role than what Hanks traditionally takes on and one of his few semi-villainous roles. Hanks believes the film will last a long time, and it’s hard to argue that the deeper thematic elements of the film don’t help that case,
“People always say, ‘What movies will they be talking about years from now?’ As a guy who watches Turner Classic Movies a lot, the more obscure and unknown a movie from the 1940s or 1950s the better, because I have no preconceived notions about it. I don’t know anything about it. When you watch those movies, and it’s crackerjack, and it’s incredibly moving, all I can think of is, ‘I’m so glad this movie lasts forever, so I got a chance to revisit it now.’ That might be the case with Road to Perdition.”
For a movie to last decades, it needs to have something deeper underneath its surface. Road to Perdition is a coming-of-age story, a road story, and a revenge story all packed into one, and it’s that combination of themes that will help the film last. Sam Mendes said about his movie (via EW),
“What was really interesting to me about the film was that it was narratively very simple, but thematically very complex.”
It’s a good lesson that the plot or narrative is not nearly as important as a movie’s ideas. It’s those powerful themes in Road to Perdition that make it worthwhile; the gangster plot is simply scaffolding. Road to Perdition is not only a story about an ᴀssᴀssin out for revenge against the people who have wronged him. That story has been told a hundred times. Road to Perdition has a more powerful thesis. That the road to perdition is a destructive one, but that you can always get off it, if you can find the strength.
