Road to Perdition

Only to find out that his sin is bigger than he is and after losing his wife and youngest son he turns his attention to saving his only son. There is a roadblock in this endeavor. He tries a few tricks, but finally realizes that in order to save his son he must eliminate the threat, of which he knows may include himself.

We all have sin and may lead a lifestyle of sin, this story illustrates that, no matter what the sin may be [cheating on taxes, adultery, stealing, lying] it will find you out and unless something drastic is done, you will drag your family along. We must be willing to risk it all to eliminate the threat. Risk our lifestyle, risk our name maybe even risk our life.

This is a great story, with great acting and cinematography and music score. Anyone who merely looks at the surface of this film as a gangster/revenge movie with gory scenes to placate the eyes of the viewer needs to take another look at this film and maybe his life.

Almost all references to Christianity are heavily negative. Roman Catholicism is bullet-riddled, (in my guess) by formerly Catholic scriptwriters, for whom it’s always in vogue to torch their childhood remembrances in public on film. This dovetails nicely with the media feeding frenzy over the current scandals. Mike Sullivan is a staunch Roman Catholic, who faithfully attends, performs all of the church’s prescriptions, even stopping by a little country church on the Road to Perdition to say prayers and meditate (on who he must murder next?), while fleeing from those who want him and his son dead. He is an intelligent, thoughtful man, to whom it should have occurred, as it painfully does to his boss, that Heaven is categorically unattainable due in part to his former profession and current motivation.

It should also be evident to him that no redemption is to be had by preaching to Michael junior the old “don’t do as I do, do as I say” nostrum (not that he makes much effort until his life is over). This makes his character schizophrenic and unbelievable. We’re supposed to like and pity this character, a variation of the standard Hollywood device of the “hooker with a heart of gold.” But this hit man’s heart is never golden, laden down with all of the continuous sins of the past, and now murderous revenge, a father’s love for his son notwithstanding.

It’s fantasy to suggest that son Michael would not be dragged down into the same miry pit, especially when his father recruits him for his mission of stealing Capone’s ill gotten gain. In the real world, it would only be a matter of time before such a son also pulled the trigger on some object of his own hatred. His father’s murderer would be a great target with which to start. The climax, while predictable given the preconceptions of the plot, is consequently ridiculous. Penitent deathbed apologies, while symbolic of expiation of guilt in some scriptwriter’s mind, are unconvincing and useless as a means of turning a son from a life of crime.

Scriptural wisdom and human experience therefore contradict the morality message of this movie. For “Road to Perdition” to have some merit, it would have to skip the psychobabble and wishful dreaming and come up with a worthwhile meaning and plausible ending.