ENSAYO SOBRE ROAD OF PERDITION

ROAD TO PERDITION

Michael Sullivan Sr., is an enforcer to John Rooney, an Irish-American crime boss in Illinois during the Great Depression. Sullivan, an orphan raised by Rooney, worked for the crime boss most of his life. Sullivan and Rooney's son, Connor, are sent by Rooney to talk to Finn McGovern, a disgruntled employee. Sullivan's son, twelve-year-old Michael Sullivan, Jr., stows away in his father's car, attempting to learn more about his enigmatic father's ambiguous profession. He witnesses Connor's impulsive killing of McGovern, and is soon after discovered by Connor and his father. Although Sullivan Sr. swears that his son will tell no-one, Connor attempts to ensure his own protection by attempting to have Sullivan Sr. killed, while murdering the rest of Sullivan's family himself. Connor kills Sullivan's wife, Annie, and younger son, Peter; Sullivan Sr. and his son, Michael Sullivan Jr., escape with their lives and flee to Chicago.

Sullivan requests assistance from a Lieutenant in Al Capone's crime syndicate, Frank Nitti, in order to get revenge on Connor, but when he is rejected, Sullivan and his son begin a string of mob-owned bank robberies in order to steal the syndicate's laundered money. Sullivan hopes to coerce Capone into giving Connor up for the money, but instead Capone dispatches assassin Harlen Maguire to kill Sullivan and his son. Maguire sets up a trap for Sullivan with the aid of Rooney's accountant, Alexander Rance. Sullivan arrives at Rance's hotel room, seeking assistance, and Rance stalls him long enough for Maguire to arrive at his room. Rance is killed in the crossfire of the ensuing gunfight, but Sullivan escapes with a bullet wound in his left arm. Maguire escapes as well, though his face is left disfigured from a debris wound. Sullivan Jr. takes his father to a farm in the country where a childless, elderly couple takes the two of them in. During his recuperation, Sullivan finds in ledgers taken from Rance's hotel room that Connor had been embezzling money from his father under the names of gang members that he had murdered.

When Sullivan Sr. recovers, he secretly meets with John Rooney during Mass and shares his discovery about Connor. Rooney not only reveals that he had been aware of Connor's treachery all along, but remains adamant in his refusal to let his son be harmed. Sullivan Sr. ambushes John Rooney and his bodyguards in the street, picking them off with his Thompson submachine gun from an alley before approaching Rooney face to face. Rooney says, "I'm glad it's you" before Sullivan Sr. tearfully unloads the last of his ammunition into him. With Rooney dead, Capone is bereft of any reason to protect Connor. Capone uses Frank Nitti as a middleman as he gives Sullivan Sr. Connor's exact location, on the condition that Sullivan Sr. gives his word

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