Playing Against Type
On top of the above qualities, Hanks told the podcast listeners, “You have me, Don-Mustache-with-a-hat-on, in it,” describing his lead role as the gangster enforcer. This is no minor detail. His role in Road to Perdition was a major break from everything audiences expected from the actor at that time. Hanks’ Michael Sullivan is a bad guy. He kills people for a living and tells his young son to deal with it when he first finds out, by accident, after hiding in the backseat of a car on its way to an unsanctioned mob execution.
Can you keep a secret? The 12-year-old son, Michael Sullivan Jr., was played by then-15-year-old Tyler Hoechlin, who went on to play Superman, Teen Wolf, and the lead in a 2019 indie romcom called Can You Keep a Secret. His scenes with Hanks grind the audience through an emotional cheese grater, centering the film on a sustained flavor of melancholy. That is until the kid giggles while learning to drive stick shift, careening around a tractor, or pulls some dice out of a shoe to shoot craps with Newman’s John Rooney.
The Irish mob family patriarch is intimidating, playful, loving, and mean. He doesn’t have to raise his voice but when he does, one or two words can take down a raging beast. His whispers are even more lethal. Newman exudes gravitas, menace, acceptance, and regret in perfectly measured doses. Subtle and powerful, Newman’s Rooney is a reasonable man who considers violence an avoidable expense, much like The Godfather’s Vito Corleone.
“What men do after work is what made us rich,” Rooney explains after turning down a labor union takeover. “No need to screw them at work.” It is easy to see why he is a respected man, as well as a feared one. As the rift grows between him and Sullivan, this line never breaks. This makes it even more painful as the two characters are forced to oppose each other.
Sins of the Father
“There are only murderers in this room, Michael,” Rooney explains in the dark cellars of an old Catholic church. “Open your eyes. This is the life we chose. The life we lead. And there is only one guarantee: none of us will see heaven.”
The story was very loosely inspired by real-life crime boss John Patrick Looney, who ran the underworld in Rock Island, Illinois. His son, Connor, was indeed known for being unpredictable, but he also had street cred as an expert shot. He was killed on Oct. 6, 1922, opening fire on a rival gang who were attempting to execute his father.
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