Road to Perdition, directed by the director of the American Beauty, Sam Mendes, is a movie with some similarities to some gangster movies of its kind, in specific like The Godfather (there are undeniable discrepancies, though). We see in this movie Michael Sullivan Sr. (Tom Hanks) involved in goon gangs to make a living in a family he hardly endeavors to keep moral and ethical: just consider the catholic prays everybody says at meal table (remember the Godfather with its trilogy of themes which were Godfather, Family, and Business among which, the middle one must not be ever mixed with the last?). Michael is a villain, so is Mr. Rooney (Paul Newman), but with one big difference: Mr. Rooney could not manage to deter his son from getting into crime; however, Michael is doing a hard job teaching his son, Michael Jr., that following his father is not all the time correct. Road to Perdition is a symbolic name for a street which might lead the father and the son to a shelter (aunt Sarah's home) but we come to realize that the ultimate shelter for such guys involved in bloody savagery is annihilation: just look at the end of the film in which Michael Sr. falls fatally wounded after being shot by a killer in disguise of a press photographer (Jude Law). To conclude let me mention that Michael was the only photography subject of the killing photographer who was taken a picture of with open eyes, all alive!
